USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, together with historic notes on the northwest and the state of Ohio > Part 36
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Contrary to what might be expected, the valley of Beaver Creek is a much broader, and deeper trough than that of the Little Miami. The drainage effected by it is, however, insignificant in amount when compared with that accomplished by the river. Beaver Creek is a small and sluggish stream, that is almost lost in a wide and fruitful valley. No one can fail to recognize the disproportion that exists between the present stream, and the valley which contains it. The truth is, Beaver valley was never excavated by Beaver Creek. It is the deserted channel of an old river, that must have had greater volume and force, than the Little Miami has to-day. Nor are we left in doubt as to the general course, and connections of the river that did this work. The valley of Beaver Creek connects upon the north with the valley of Mad River. Whether the water of the head springs of Beaver Creek shall be delivered to the Little Miami or Mad River, can be determined by the digging of a diteh, or even by the turning of a furrow. A protracted and expensive law suit, has lately been decided in the courts of Greene County, in which the only question at issue was, to which stream the head springs of Beaver naturally belong. It can, then, be asserted with all confi- dence, that the valley of Beaver Creek is but an extension of the
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valley of Mad River, and was occupied by that stream at no very remote period. An examination of the geological map of Greene County, upon which the alluvial valleys of the county are also indi- cated, serves to bring out this point very distinctly.
In Clarke County, an older valley of the Great Miami River is shown to exist, connecting its present valley of that of Mad River. In other words, the junction of these streams was effected below Springfield, instead of taking place at Dayton, as at present. And thus it seems probable that the valley now under consideration, viz., the valley of Beaver Creek, was formerly occupied by the waters of the Great Miami, after they had been re-enforced by the whole vol- ume of Mad River. With such an origin, the present dimensions of the valley are easy to be understood.
The valley of the Little Miami, in Greene County, consists of two well marked portions, the lowermost of which has been cut out of the shales, and limestone of the Cincinnati series, while in the upper portion, the river has been obliged to hew its was through the mas- sive courses of the cliff limestone. The lower valley is, therefore, deep and capacious, while the upper part consists of a narrow gorge, bounded by precipitous walls. The first of the above-named divisions constitutes one of the most valuable tracts of the county, in an agricultural point of view ; the second has no such economical ap- plications, aside from the water-power which the river here fur- nishes in large amount, but which has not yet been utilized to any great degree. Indeed, it returns but little in dollars and cents, but it furnishes the most picturesque, and attractive scenery, not only of the county, but all of the region around. There is but one point in all southwestern Ohio, where more striking scenery is shown than that furnished by the gorge of the Little Miami between Grin- nell's Mills and Clifton. The limestone is cut down to a depth of from sixty to eighty feet, while the valley never exceeds a few hun- dred feet in breadth ; and at Clifton, it if contracted to a score or two of feet, being sometimes actually four times as deep as it is wide. The geological elements that are shown in the valley, will be treated of in succeeding pages, and the influence of each upon the propor- tions which it assumes will be duly considered.
Several of the more prominent tributaries of the river, exhibit features quite similar to those last described. The valley of Mas- sie's Creek, below Cedarville, presents scenery almost as striking as that furnished by the Little Miami at Clifton. Clark's Run, near
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the south line of Miami township, shows another of these deep gorges, while the beautiful glen at Yellow Springs, which has had precisely such an origin, is known to thousands of people in south- western Ohio.
Cæsar's Creek flows in a much shallower trough than any of those already described. Its upper branches occupy slight depressions in the Drift beds, that cover so deep the eastern side of the county, and while at the western margin of the cliff limestone it is bedded in rock, it has wrought out no deep channel for itself.
Aside from these principal depressions, the general surface of the county is a plain, having an average elevation above the sea of one thousand feet. Throughout the six eastern townships, and in Miami Township on the north, the surface is quite uniform-one hundred feet, or one hundred and fifty feet at most, comprising the extreme range of variation in level. The remainder of the county lies, it is true, at a somewhat lower average elevation, but there are insulated summits all through it holding the general level above given.
By reference to the geological map, it will be seen that these di- visions agree exactly with the great geological divisions of the county, its northern and eastern portions being underlain with the Upper Silurian, or cliff limestones; while from the western half, though originally present, this formation has been carried away by long-continued erosion, only insulated patches of it now remaining to attest its former extent. It is to be remarked that the occasional summits, already spoken of, in the western half of the county, that are one thousand feet or more above the sea, are in all cases these outliers of cliff limestone, to which attention is now called.
By the removal of the protecting sheet of the cliff limestone, the softer beds of the Cincinnati series have been uncovered, and the wear and waste in them have been much more rapid than in the higher rocks.
The deposits of the Drift have been spread all over the county, reducing the asperities of the surface and hiding many ancient channels, but after all only modifying, and not essentially changing the great features determined by the underlying geological struc- ture. So that here, as in other counties, a geological map becomes in great degree a topographical map, the areas of the cliff lime- stone comprising those districts of the county that have an eleva-
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GEOLOGY. 373
tion of a thousand or more feet above tide water, while all other areas belong to the Lower Silurian, or Cincinnati series.
The lowest land of the county is found on its southern boundary, in the valley of the Little Miami, and ranges between two hundred and seventy-five feet and three hundred feet above low water at Cincinnati, or between seven hundred feet and seven hundred and twenty-five feet above the sea. The highest land is found in Cedar- ville and Miami townships, along the water-sheds between the Lit- tle Miami and Massie's Creek, and the Little Miami and Mad River respectively. It may be safely estimated to be not less than six hundred and fifty feet above Cincinnati, or eleven hundred feet above the sea. There is but little difference in the elevations of these dividing ridges. The summits of each consist of stratified beds of sand and gravel belonging to the latest stage of the Drift period. The highest elevation held by the bedded rock is probably in Miami Township, to the north and northwest of Yellow Springs.
The elevations of a few of the principal points in the county are here appended, almost all of which were determined by Franklin C. Hill, Esq., of Yellow Springs. All are counted above low water at Cincinnati :
Feet.
Xenia, grade of railroad at depot, . 491 Yellow Springs, grade of railroad at depot, 541 ·
Osborne, grade of railroad at depot, 410
Spring Valley, grade of railroad at depot, . 333
Claysville, grade of railroad at depot,
321
· Harbine's Station, grade of railroad at depot, 370
Oldtown, grade of railroad at depot, 396 Goe's Station, grade of railroad at depot, . 427 ·
Berryhill's Hill, Spring Valley Township (outlier of cliff lime- stone), . 560
Shoup's quarry, two miles southwest of Harbine's (outlier of cliff limestone), · 519
Gravel bank, Yellow Springs, about 625
Railroad grade, one mile north of Yellow Springs (north line of county), about 600
Cedarville (railroad grade), about 550
Low water at Cincinnati is four hundred and thirty-two feet 24
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above the sea. By adding, therefore, four hundred and thirty-two feet to each of these elevations, the level above the sea is obtained.
II. GEOLOGICAL SERIES.
The geological scale of Greene County is identical with that of Montgomery and Clarke counties. Its rock formations are con- fined to two great series, viz .: those of Upper and Lower Silurian age; and between them the surface of the county is almost equally divided.
A vertical section of the rocks of the county would be found to contain the following elements:
3. Niagara Group.
2. Clinton Limestone.
1. Cincinnati Series, Lebanon division.
The lowest division has an aggregate thickness of two hundred and fifty feet, the middle division of fifty feet, and the uppermost of one hundred and twenty-five feet, making the total section of the rocks of the county four hundred and twenty-five feet.
The best general section for the study of the strata of the county -and there is no better one for the same geological elements in the state-is found in the valley of the Little Miami River and its tributaries, between Goe's Station and Yellow Springs. At the first named point, Goe's Station, the Little Miami is bedded in the limestones and shales of the Cincinnati series. Fifty feet, at least, of this formation are here shown on the western side of the valley. The Xenia turnpike, the Little Miami Railroad, and the race for the powder mills have all required rock-cuttings. The streams, also, that descend from the uplands, have their channels in the rock, so that the constitution and contents of the beds can be fully studied. The fossils of this portion of the series abound in these outcrops and sections. Among them are to be named Rhynchonella capar, Trematospira modesta, Orthis occidentalis (upper variety), Stro- phomena planumbona, and several of the corals.
.
The termination of the Cincinnati series is very distinctly shown in the ravine to the south of Mr. Goe's residence. This may, in- deed, be considered a typical locality, for it is from this very point that the phenomena of the line of junction between the Lower and Upper Silurian formations have, in part, been described. Between the fossiliferous beds of the Cincinnati group and the overlying
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Clinton limestone there occur twenty to thirty feet of fine-grained shales in color, light blue or red, and destitute of fossils. Occupy- ing as do these shales the place held by the Medina group to the eastward and northward, it has been suggested that they are a rep- resentative of that period. They are not, however, found at all sections of this horizon, the Clinton sometimes resting directly upon the fossiliferous beds of the Cincinnati series.
A fine display of the Clinton limestone is shown in the wall of rock that immediately overhangs the shales above described. The same limestone occurs in bold cliffs along the river valley, near Grinnell's Mill.
From this last named point the section is prolonged by the Yel- low Springs branch, which shows, in the course of two miles, at least one hundred feet of rock. The artificial sections of the Yel- low Springs quarries are now reached, which constitute, on the whole, the best point in the county at which to study the Niagara series.
There are other fine natural sections of the rocks of the county, but the one now described may be taken as a fair sample of them all.
The separate elements in the geological scale above given will now be briefly treated.
1. The uppermost two hundred and fifty feet, or thereabouts, of the Lebanon division of the Cincinnati series, underlie the western half of Greene County. This area comprises the more eroded por- tions of the county, as has been already stated, and, lying at a low level, is so heavily covered with the deposits of the modified Drift that the rocks are, for the most part, concealed. There are, how- ever, numerous exposures of the series, especially in Spring Valley and Sugar Creek townships, in which all of its characteristics, both as to order of stratification and fossil contents, can be seen and studied to excellent advantage. One hundred feet are shown in the valley of Bear Branch, a small tributary of the Little Miami, which enters the valley opposite Claysville. There is no point in the state where finer specimens of some of the common fossils of the formation have been found than here. Among them may be named Ambonychia radiata, Orthis sinuata, Leptaena sericea, Rhyncho- nella capaz, Isotelus megistos. Representatives of at least thirty species of fossils can be obtained from the section here shown.
The line of junction between the Lower and Upper Silurian for-
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mations is shown as distinctly in Greene County as in any section of the state. One of the favorable points for studying it has already been named, but others almost equally satisfactory are furnished in the neighborhoods of Franklin Berryhill and Thomas J. Brown, of Spring Valley Township, on Cæsar's Creek, where it is crossed by the Wilmington and Xenia Turnpike, and in the vicinity of Reed's Hill, in Bath Township.
As elsewhere in southwestern Ohio, this horizon is marked by copious springs, to which attention will be more particularly called in the subsequent pages of this report.
The same general order of facts described as occurring in the section at Goe's Station will be found at each of the localities here named.
The Cincinnati series in Greene County furnishes a small amount of building stone of fair quality, and this is, at present, its only economical application.
2. The Clinton limestone comes next in order, and its exposures in Greene County leave nothing to be desired. The fine displays of it along the Little Miami valley, from Goe's Station to Yellow Springs, have already been noted. In addition to the section near Mr.'Goe's residence, the stratum can be seen to excellent advantage on the farms of Mrs. Bell, Messrs. J. II. Little, F. Grinnell, A. V. Siver, and Wm. C. Neff, and in the cuttings for the Grinnell pike at the Little Miami bridge, and near the house of Dunmore MeGwin. In Xenia township, it is well shown in the banks of Oldtown Run and Massie's Creek, and also near the head springs of Ludlow Creek, on the farms of James Collins and others. In Bath town- ship, however, there are miles of outerops in which the whole for- mation is displayed with the greatest possible distinctness. Reed's Hill may be especially named in this connection. It is a promon- tory of cliff limestone, overlooking the broad and fruitful valleys of Mad River, Beaver Creek, already described, and the Great Miami valley. From its summit, one of the most extensive, and beautiful landscapes of south-western Ohio is shown. The Clinton formation is seldom found, except as a narrow margin to the Niagara group, by which it is overlain. There are, however, a few outliers in the southwestern part of the county, from which the Niagara rocks have been entirely removed, and where the Clinton has thus been left to form the surface for two or three square miles.
The Clinton limestone at all these points, as elsewhere, is mainly
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a semi-crystalline, crinoidal limestone. In its bedding, it is uneven and interrupted, occuring in lenticular masses. A course can sel- dom be followed for twenty feet. Within this distance it is almost sure to terminate in a feather edge. In composition the limestone is quite uniform, consisting of about 85 per cent. of carbonate of lime, and 12 per cent. of carbonate of magnesia. Even the lower- most layers, which are distinctly sandy in texture, and which are locally known as sandstone, do not deviate from this general for- mula. A notable percentage of peroxide of iron is of very frequent occurance in the limestone, giving to it a deep red color. This is the nearest approach to the famous Clinton ore which the formation shows in Greene County. Just south of the county line, on Todd's Fork, near Wilmington, a considerable deposit of this peculiar and valuable limestone ore is found, and occasional outerops of it are found all the way to the Ohio River, the most important, thus far noted, occuring near the north line of Adams county, in the vicinity of Sinking Springs. It will be remembered that this same stratum rises into immense economical importance as the Dry-stone ore of Eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama. The more common colors of the formation in Greene County are, however, light gray, yellow, and pinkish, the latter tint being specially characteristic. Its crystalline character is so well developed that much of the for- mation can be counted a true marble. It is susceptible of a high polish, and when some of the red varieties of the stratum are sel- ected, it makes a highly ornamental stone, the sections of the white crinoidal stems, giving a beautiful relief to the darker ground. It will, however, be seen from the facts already stated that the lime- stone can have no great value for any such application on account of its lenticular bedding.
The base of the Clinton limestone, or rather the summit of the Cincinnati group, is a notable water-bearer, as is shown by the fine line of springs that issue from this horizon wherever the drainage allows. It has already been remarked, that the lower beds of the Clinton are sandy in texture. At many points they are extremely friable, and are, consequently, very easily removed by the under- ground streams that are flowing at this level, and, as a consequence, small caves frequently occur at the base of the series. In other cases sink-holes are found, which are due to the same general cause. By the solution of the rocks along the lines of the divi- sional planes or joints that traverse them, free way is opened from
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the surface to the water-bearing shales of the Cincinnati group, and streams of small volume sometimes drop suddenly to this hori- zon to emerge again along the outerops of the formation, perhaps at a distance of miles even from the point of descent. One of the best known of these sink-holes is found very near the intersection of the Xenia and Fairfield Pike with the Dayton and Yellow Springs Pike. The stream that here drops from the light of day to these subterranean recesses comes out again a mile or more to the southward, re-enforced, doubtless, by others that have shared a like fate, as the head spring of Ludlow Creek-one of the finest fountains in the county. These sink-holes have been sometimes deserted by the water-courses that have helped to fashion them, in which cases they have frequently been construed, in the neighbor- hoods in which they occur, as abandoned " lead-mines." Some portions of the county are full of circumstantial traditions of lead veins being worked by the Indians here. It is scarcely necessary to say that the civilized occupants of Greene County know a vast deal more of its geological structure and mineral resources than any of their uncivilized predecessors have done. There is not a shadow of reason for believing in the existence of metallic veins of any sort within its area.
The limestone terminates at its upper limit variously. The most characteristic mode is in a foot or two of fine-grained, light blue clay or marlite. This is the usual mode in Montgomery County, where the horizon is found to be one of great palæontological in- terest. In Greene County, however, when the marlite occurs it is sometimes destitute of fossils. It can be seen at the base of Mc- Donald's quarry, south of Xenia, and at a few points along the Grinnell pike, near Yellow Springs.
When the blue clay is not shown there is no change in the com- position of the limestone for its uppermost ten or fifteen feet, but there is always s very marked transition in passing to the lowest beds of the Niagara group.
The uses of the Clinton limestone are much less important now than they were in the earlier history of the county. It serves a very fair purpose as a building stone, but occurring, as it so gener- ally does, in close proximity to the Niagara series, which yields some of the finest building rock of Ohio, it comes to be but little thought of when quarries of the latter are made accessible. In earlier times, however, the higher degree of accessibility of the Clinton beds caused them to be largely drawn upon.
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In like manner the manufacture of quick-lime from the Clinton formation has been wholly abandoned. For many years the out- crops of this stratum on Reed's Hill supplied the Mad River Valley and the western side of the county quite largely with lime. Lime was also burned from this horizon in Xenia Township twenty years ago. It has, however, been fully established, that in the manufac- ture of quick-lime none of the numerous varieties of calcareous rocks in southwestern Ohio can enter into successful competition with the Guelph or Cedarville beds of the Niagara series, where the latter occur. The economy with which lime can be produced from this formation, and the manifest and decided superiority of the product, have ruled out all other sources.
In the vertical scale of the rocks of the county a thickness of fifty feet was assigned to the Clinton limestone. This measure is to be obtained in the first section described, namely, that from Goe's Station to Yellow Springs. It is, however, to be remarked that it is an exceptional thickness, and that the formation rapidly thins out to the southward, being reduced in Spring Valley Township to less than half this measurement.
3. The last element in the geological scale of the county is now reached, viz .: the Niagara series. It takes precedence among the formations of the county on several grounds. It occupies a some- what greater area than the Cincinnati group, and it impresses much more distinct features upon the district in which it occurs than does the latter formation. Several of the more noticeable facts in the topography of the county are referable, as has been already inti- mated, to the presence and characteristics of the cliff limestone, of which the Niagara is the leading element. Its outerop is a rocky wall, very often uncovered, and generally reached by quite an ab- rupt ascent, at least one hundred feet above the level of the adja- cent county. The picturesque gorges of the Little Miami and its tributaries are due to. the order of stratification of the Niagara beds, and to the same order must be referred the water supply of a considerable part of the county. The building stone and quick- lime of the county are almost wholly obtained from the Niagara beds; and, in addition to these home supplies, large amounts of each are exported to surrounding cities and towns.
The divisions of the Niagara group are well marked, and several of the individual members outrank in importance the last forma- tion treated. A tabular view of these subdivisions is here appended :
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SUBDIVISIONS OF THE NIAGARA GROUP.
5. Guelph or Cedarville beds, .
Feet. 0-45
4. Springfield beds, 30
3. West Union beds, 10
2. Niagara shale, . 30
1. Dayton stone, 0-10
Total, .
.
125
The separate elements will be briefly noticed.
(a.) The Dayton limestone, which forms, wherever it occurs, the very base of the Niagara system, is an exceptional formation. It occupies isolated areas through three or four counties of the Third Geological District. Its place in the series throughout the district generally, and the country at large, is occupied with widely differ- ent kinds of deposits. The typical locality, as the name of the formation denotes, is Dayton, Montgomery County.
The Dayton stone is found in great excellence, and in considera- ble quantity, in Greene County. Beginning on the western border, we find it capping the outlier of cliff limestone that lies southwest of Harbine's Station, in Beaver Creek Township. Owing, how- ever, to the greater accessibility of contiguous deposits-especially those of the Dayton district-these beds have been but little devel- oped. Neighborhood supplies have been drawn for a long time from the farms of Moses Shoup, Archibald Huston, and others; but within the last two or three years larger quantities have been taken out and distributed from Harbine's Station, by the Dayton and Xenia Railroad. The stone, as here found, has all the charac- teristic excellence of the formation in thickness, homogeneity, du- rability, and color; but its value is somewhat reduced by the abundant crystals of sulphide of iron (known by the quarrymen as sulphur), which weather on exposure, and disfigure the surface by dark-brown stains. The area underlain is considerable, and every foot of the deposit is sure to come into demand with the increasing age and resources of the surrounding country.
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