USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, together with historic notes on the northwest and the state of Ohio > Part 37
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The next outerop of it is found on the farm of Mr. James Col- lins, Xenia Township; but though the stone is unmistakable here in its general character, it is much reduced in thickness and, con-
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GEOLOGY.
sequently, in value, and evidently marks the limit of the deposit in this direction. A mile or two beyond, to the east and north, the horizon of the Dayton stone is shown in many exposures with per- fect distinctness; but its place is occupied by light-blue shale, or soapstone, as it is popularly called, and a worthless, shaly limestone, yellow in color, and generally covered with fucoidal impressions, which are frequently rendered green by the presence of silicate of iron. This phase is well shown on the Grinnell pike, opposite the farm of Mr. A. V. Sizer, a mile below Yellow Springs.
By far the best known deposit of the Dayton stone in the county, however, is found on the MeDonald farm, three and a half miles south of Xenia. The rock was originally exposed here along a tributary of Caesar's Creek. When the quarries were first opened, but a light covering of glacial Drift, or bowlder clay, was found; but as the lines have been extended the stripping has become heavier. The surface of the rock has been planed and polished by glacier agency. From four to eight feet of workable rock are here found, divided into courses varying from four to twenty inches in thickness. The stone finds market in Xenia, being quite widely distributed from that point by railroad.
The composition of the stone from the MeDonald quarry is seen in the following analysis made by Professor Wormley:
Carbonate of lime, . 84.50
Carbonate of magnesia,
11.16
Alumina and iron,
2.00
Silicious,
2.00
99.86
(b.) The Niagara shale directly overlies the Dayton stone where the latter stratum is found, and the Clinton formation, in case the Dayton stone is wanting. It is a normal constituent of the general geological scale of the country. Eighty-five feet of it are found at the Falls of Niagara, and along the Appalachain Chain it is thick- ened to one thousand five hundred feet. Its maximum develop- ment in Greene County can be seen in the "Glen," at Yellow Springs, on the land of W. C. Neff, Esq., and at the locality already noted, in the cutting for the Grinnell pike, opposite the old water- cure grounds. It here attains a thickness of thirty feet. This
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
member of the series increases rapidly as it is followed southward through the state, measuring in Adams County one hundred and six feet.
In composition it is not perfectly uniform, the two elements that enter into it being found in varying proportions in different sec- tions. These two elements have been already named-a light-blue calcareous shale, and thin-bedded, yellowish shaly limestone. The shale is much the more constant and abundant of the two, the lime- stone layers coming in, as a rule, near the bottom of the series, at the same horizon where the Dayton stone is found when it occurs.
In other words, the Dayton stone, in exceptional instances, re- places these shaly layers. The last-named phase of the formation is shown very distinctly in the section on the Grinnell pike. The composition of the shale proper is shown by the following analysis made by Professor Wormley :
Carbonate of lime, .
34.40
Carbonate of magnesia,
30.87
Silicate of lime,
8.48
Alumina and iron,
8.40
Silica,
12.21 ·
Water, combined, .
5.40
99.78
There are occasionally found in the shale numerous crystals and nodules of sulphuret of iron. In some of the sections shown in the Glen at Yellow Springs such nodules abound. They are often construed by the ignorant as indicating mineral treasures in the rocks which are here shown. A pit near the mouth of the Cascade Branch, six feet in diameter, and certainly more than twenty feet in depth, walled with timber, and now partly filled with rubbish, the origin of which is unknown to the oldest inhabitants, seems to show that such deceitful expectations were awakened in the minds of the earlier occupants of the country. Such unsuccessful experi- ments serve to show that our predecessors knew less than we now know of the contents of the strata, rather than more, as the credu- lous sometimes believe. The excavation was carried down into the Clinton limestone, the whole thickness of which might have been seen and studied by passing down the valley for half a mile.
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The surface of the Niagara shale is a very important water- bearer for this whole region, giving rise to a line of strong springs along its outerops, and supplying the largest number of the drilled wells of the table-land.
(c.) The next element in ascending order is the formation termed West Union Cliff. This stratum would certainly not be erected into a separate division from any facts in its occurrence in this part of the state; but in Adams County it attains a thickness of ninety feet, and constitutes, in several of the southern counties, a very marked and important element in the Niagara series. In Greene County, as in Clarke, it does not exceed eight feet in thickness, and the principal interest in its existence here is a stratigraphical in- terest, namely, in the recognition of the constancy of the elements found in the expanded sections to the southward.
It is to be identified principally by its containing a fossil known as an elongated form of Atrypa reticularis. On the ground of its occurrence in Ohio strata, a distinct designation ought certainly to be given to this form, for it is never found above the horizon of the West Union cliff. The stratum is cliffy in its structure, generally showing but few lines of bedding, and weathering in a rough and ungainly form. The "Cascade" at Yellow Springs reveals this formation, the water of the stream being precipitated over it, while it in turn overhangs the easily eroded shales of the underlying di- vision. The same elements-geological and physical-occur here that are to be found at the Falls of Niagara; and more truly than most waterfalls, the humble cataract here mentioned can be termed a miniature Niagara.
This element is also to be noted in Cedarville Township, on the southern line.
(d.) The fourth element is economically more important than any yet mentioned in the geology of the county. It is the division from which the building stone of the county is largely supplied. The Dayton stone, on account of its high degree of excellence as a cutting stone, commands too high a price for all common nses, and finds its market, not in the country districts, but in the cities and larger towns of the state, and even of adjoining states. The new Chamber of Commerce in Chicago is built in part of Dayton stone. For all ordinary uses the stratum now under consideration is the principal dependence. In Clarke County it received the designation of the Springfield stone, and by this name it will here be
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
recognized. It furnishes all the building rock raised at Springfield, but .does not, perhaps, make the most characteristic formation shown there, as the cap-rock from which the well-known Spring- field lime is so extensively burned, belongs to a different division, namely, the Cedarrille, or Guelph beds.
The Springfield stone has a broad outerop in Miami and Cedar- ville townships. It is much more largely quarried at Yellow Springs than at any other point in the county, but on Massie's Creek and its tributaries, west of Cedarville, it is also quite exten- sively worked, and the aggregate product of neighborhood quar- ries is also large. A description of this stratum at any one point applies very well to all other exposures. In the section at Yellow Springs twenty-four feet of rock are found that are referred to this division, though not more than twelve feet are ordinarily worked.
The courses vary in thickness from four to fourteen inches. Those which are most valued for building stone generally range between these extremes. Several of the courses answer a fair pur- pose for cutting stone. The same qualified commendation can be given to them for flagging. In neither of these respects has there been, as yet, sufficient inducement to fully develop the capabilities of the beds. But for general masonry they leave little to be de- sired. Easily raised and dressed, of convenient thickness, and of ample surface, they are not surpassed by any stone in the state in economy of use.
In color they are either blue or drab. The blue courses fre- quently weather to drab on their exposed edges.
The composition of the Springfield stone has been incidentally alluded to. A sample of the blue rock taken from the quarries of W. Sroufe, Esq., of Yellow Springs, gave the following result. (Wormley.)
Carbonate of lime, .
51.10
Carbonate of magnesia,
41.12
Sand and silica, .
5.40
Alumina, with trace of iron, . 1.40
99.02
A magnesian limestone of France, cited by Vicat, as furnishing an excellent hydraulic lime, was, by chance, noticed to have an al-
-
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GEOLOGY.
most identical composition. Experiments were instituted with ref- erence to hydraulic properties in the stone now under considera- tion, and it was found to have great energy as a cement. It can scarcely be doubted that these home supplies will come to be util- ized at no distant day. Attention is called to the fact that Greene County possesses an ample supply of hydraulic limestone fully equal in quality to the cement which serves a district of France most satisfactorily. The great obstacle to the introduction of a new cement lies in the fact that masons, after becoming used to one particular product, are very loth to adopt the changes in prac- tice which a new article renders necessary. The product here fur- nished is a hydraulic lime, and not a hydraulic cement.
The silicious concretions and nodules often replacing fossils, and the silicious layers which are so abundant in the quarries of Clarke County, are almost entirely wanting here.
Shaly partings are occasionally found between the courses. At a depth of eight or ten feet below the surface of the stratum, a layer of shale, several inches thick, occurs, which, from its impervious nature, becomes an important water-bearer.
There is not the same paucity of fossils in this stratum which marks the Dayton stone or the Niagara shale, but compared with the limestones of the Clinton and Cincinnati groups, and also with the overlying division, it may yet be said to be poor in this respect. The most striking forms by far that it contains, are the casts of the monstrous brachiopod shell, Pentamerus oblongus, which sometimes completely cover the surface of the layers. This interesting and characteristic fossil begins its great development in the rocks of the Mississippi valley at this particular horizon. At the east it charac- terizes the Clinton group, but it has never yet been found in the Clinton limestone of Ohio. A single overgrown specimen was ob- tained from the bottom of the Niagara series by the late Col. Greer, of Dayton, and a few specimens have been found in the West Union cliff of Adams County, but throughout the periods represented by this, and the succeeding formation, it had a wonderful expansion, literally paving the ancient sea-floor for hundreds of square miles through uncounted centuries. It often constitutes the substance of the rock for eight or ten feet in thickness. No more perfect internal casts of this shell, seem possible than the quarries of W. Sroufe, Esq., of Yellow Springs, have furnished.
A few other brachiopod shells are occasionally met with in this
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
division. Among them may be named Pentamerus rentricosus, Orthis biforata, Atrypa reticularis (shorter form,) and Meristella Maria. None of these, however, are confined to this division. The Niagara tri- lobite, Calymene Blumenbachii, var. Niagarensis, is also of frequent occurence.
(e.) Overlying the Springfield stone, there is found in southern Ohio the representative of a formation, the place of which was a subject of much discussion in the earlier days of American geology. The discussion has terminated in its being assigned, without dissent, to the Niagara series. It forms the crowning member of this series in the northern, and western portions of its widely extended field. It has received the names of various localities where it is distinctly shown, being styled the Guelph formation in Canada, the Racine . beds, or Milwaukee beds, in Wisconsin, and the Bridgeport beds in northern Illinois. In southern Ohio, no local name can be selected so appropriate, and free from ambiguity as the Cedarville lime- stone, constituting, as it does, the only member of the Niagara series shown in the extensive quarries opened at this village. There is not, however, as great a thickness of the limestone shown at Cedar- ville as at Yellow Springs. The exposure of the Niagara rocks at this last named place has been repeatedly referred to, and now, since all the elements that enter into it have been given, a somewhat more detailed account will be supplied. It is decidely the best section of the Niagara series shown in Greene County, and is but little inferior to the section at Holcomb's lime-kilns, below Springfield.
The Clinton limestone follows up the Yellow Springs branch, to a point nearly opposite the extensive quarries of W. Sroufe, Esq. Starting from this well-settled base, eighty-four feet of the Niagara rocks are traversed in a very steep ascent. The uppermost thirty feet are shown in the quarries before referred to; the lowermost thirty feet are well shown in the adjacent banks of the Cascade Branch. Exposures of the intervening beds are not wanting in the immediate vicinity. The thickness here given is thus divided:
Cedarville beds
22 feet.
Springfield stone
24 «
West Union cliff
8
Niagara shales
30
Total
84
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The twenty-two feet of the upper division, are further re-enforc- ed in the higher ground adjoining the ravine. It gains ten feet, at least, in the land immediately to the westward, and may be safely taken as not far below forty feet in its total thickness here.
The identification of this stratum has been made complete by the discovery of a considerable number of fossils in it that are pe- culiar to the above named horizon. Of these the most prominent and characteristic are two great shells, the enormous and somewhat abnormal brachiopod Trimerella, and a lamellibranch shell of even greater bulk, Megalomox Canadensis. Trimerella is represented in these beds, not only by the species grandis (Billings), but also by the still larger form, Ohioensis (Meek). It cannot, however, be said that either of these forms is abundant in Greene County, but their pres- ence has been proved by a few specimens from both the Yellow Springs and Cedarville quarries.
The lithological characteristics of the formation in Greene County are quite marked. The lowermost ten or twelve feet consists of a massive rock almost destitute of the appearance of planes of strati- fication. When raised by blasting, it comes out in large and un- gainly fragments. In color, it is a very light gray, and the numer- ous cavities, large and small, which are found in it, are all studded with minute crystals of lime. It is crowned with casts of fossils, of all the groups represented in the formation, but often the forms have been rendered obscure by partial solution, and nothing re- mains but a confused mass of the firmer parts of the structures. Nothing can exceed the beauty which fresh surfaces of the rock sometimes disclose, the faces of the fossils being frosted with crys- tals. The heavy bed of Pentamerus oblongus referred to in the pre- ceding section, is found in this part of the series.
The most interesting series of fossils thus far obtained from any one locality, was furnished by the quarry of Mr. John Orr, of Cedar- ville. Several specimens were yielded at this point, which have been found nowhere else in Ohio.
The upper portions consist of a very thin-bedded and fragile limestone, often sandy in texture, and either light gray in color or yellowish. The latter is the predominant tint at Yellow Springs, the former at Clifton, while both appear at Cedarville. This portion is no less fossiliferous than the lower part, and both contain the same forms, though the proportions in which the separate fossils oc- cur, vary somewhat in the two divisions.
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
In composition, the whole formation is very nearly a typical dol- omite. A few analyses are appended to show its constitution along the line of its outcrop, the range represented, covering at least one hundred and fifty miles. The analyses were all made by Dr. Wormley.
No. 1. Bierley's quarry, Greenville, Darke County.
" 2. Dugan's Sidney, Shelby County.
" 3. Holcomb's Springfield, Clarke County.
" 4. Sroufe's Yellow Springs, Greene County.
" 5. Trimble's Hillsborough, Highland County.
1. 2. 3.
4.
5.
Carbonate of lime .
44.60
55.00
55.10
54.75
54.25
Carbonate of magnesia 50.11
42.92
43.05
42.23
43.28
Alumina and iron
1.60
1.70
2.00
1.80
Silicious matter
4.60
trace.
0.10
0.40
0.40
99.31
99.52
99.95
99.83
99.68
But a single economical application is made of the Cedarville limestone. The facts already stated, show how poorly adapted it is for use as a building stone, but as a source of quick-lime this stratum is without a rival in the markets of southwestern Ohio.
Lime is now burned in quantity, at but two points in Greene County,-Yellow Springs and Cedarville,-but equal advantages in every particular, except the all-important one of transportation, are furnished at many other points, and especially at, and below Clifton, on the Little Miami River. The business at the two points named, has attained quite important proportions, and is the source of a considerable income to the county. A few of the details are here appended.
At Cedarville, lime is now burned by the five following firms : Wesley Iliff, Satterfield and Son, Shrads and Gibney, Orr and Son, D. S. Ervin. The parties are named according to the order in which they took up the business. Wesley Iliff has been engaged in burn- ing lime at this point for thirty years. All of the firms but one use old-fashioned kilns, namely, those in which fifteen hundred to two thousand bushels of lime are burned at one time, the kiln being allowed to cool before it is emptied and re-filled. To carry on the business in a large way, each firm requires two or more such kilns,
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so that while one is burning, lime can be drawn from another.
Mr. D. S. Ervin, alone employs patent draw-kilns. The compar- ison of the two modes of burning, was made at length in the report on Clarke County. (Geology of Ohio, Vol. 1., p. 475.)
The production for the year 1874 ranges as follows: D. S. Ervin, two hundred and eighty car loads, or eighty-five thousand bushels ; Wesley Iliff, one hundred and thirty car loads, or forty thousand bushels; Shrads and Gibney, one hundred and thirty car loads, or forty thousand bushels ; Orr and Son, seventy-five car loads, or twenty-three thousand bushels; Satterfield and Son, forty car loads, or twelve thousand bushels.
The average cost of wood is three dollars per cord, and one cord is used in the burning of fifty bushels of lime in the old pattern of kilns. In the patent kilns, Mr. Ervin reports sixty-six bushels to one cord of wood. The lime finds market mainly along the line of the Little Miami Railroad. The price for 1874 was fifty-five dollars per car load, or eighteen and one-third cents per bushel. When retailed at the kilns, it was sold for twenty-five cents per bushel.
The Cedarville lime has the reputation of being. " cooler" than the limes with which it comes into competition ; that is, it does not give out as much heat in slaking, and slakes with more difficulty, or at least with less rapidity. Whatever differences of this sort exist must be referred to its physical state rather than to its chem- ical constitution, as it agrees in this respect perfectly with the Yel- low Springs, Springfield, and Sidney limes.
At Yellow Springs the business of lime-burning is extensively carried on by W. Sroufe, Esq. He gives the amount of lime produced at his kilns during the year 1874 as thirty thousand bushels. The cost of wood averages three dollars and twenty- five cents per cord, and one cord, as at Cedarville, is re- quired for the burning of fifty bushels of lime. The lime is sold at fifty-five dollars a car load, as is that manufactured at Cedar- ville.
The Yellow Springs quarries reach down to the building-stone courses that underlie the lime-producing stratum. Mr. Sroufe re- ports the sale of five hundred perches of building stone during 1874. The average price of building stone is one dollar and seventy-five cents per perch. No courses well adapted to cutting have yet been worked here.
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
The Cedarville beds impress a peculiar appearance on the valleys in which sections of them are disclosed. They generally appear in a smooth, vertical wall, bluish white in color, and overhanging the even courses of the Springfield stone. The latter are more easily eroded than the cap-rock, by reason of the shaly partings found between them. It therefore results that when a stream has once cut its way through the cap-rock the gorge becomes fully as wide. or even wider, at the bottom than at the top, as is the case at Clif- ton. As the work of erosion advances, large masses of the cliff are left unsupported, and are at last precipitated into the ravine, as is shown so abundantly in the valley of the Miami between Clif- ton and Grinnell's Mill. The present state of the valley at Clifton shows very clearly the manner in which the whole work has been accomplished. We can be certain that the valley has been grow- ing through the illimitable past by the same stages that we can mark so clearly at the present day.
The springs that issue from the Niagara series are very impor- tant and servicable, but attention will be called at this place to but a single point in connection with them, namely, the heavy deposits of travertine which some of them have made and are still making. The great fountain from which the village of Yellow Springs de- rives its name will be treated by itself, but all along the gorges in the Niagara limestone voluminous springs are issuing, which are making extensive calcareous deposits, sometimes in dome-shaped stalagmitic masses under the dripping of the springs, but more frequently mingled with the earthy and organic products over and among which the waters flow in short slopes to the valley. The vegetable, and sometimes the animal, matters that the water meets with are often incrusted with the travertine, and are then said in popular language to be petrified. A specimen submitted to analy- sis gave the following result (Wormley):
Carbonate of lime,
95.70
Carbonate of magnesia,
3.73
Alumina and iron,
0.50
99.93
Another specimen examined shows the following composition (Mees) :
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GEOLOGY.
Carbonate of lime,
97.60
Carbonate of magnesia,
1.21
· Silicious matter,
0.60
99.41
In this connection the very interesting fact is to be noted, that while the rocks from which the springs issue are dolomitic, con- taining nearly as much carbonate of magnesia as carbonate of lime, the travertine is almost purely calcareous. It therefore appears that in magnesian limestones permeated by atmospheric waters, the proportions of magnesia must be constantly, though of course very slowly, increasing. The varying proportions of carbonate of magnesia in the limestones of the Cedarville division may be, in part, accounted for in this way. By reference to the table of an- alyses, it will be seen that this substance in one instance makes fifty per cent. of the entire weight of the rock. A greater expos- ure than ordinary to carbonated waters will serve to explain this increased proportion. It may be added that the location of the quarry from which the stone yielding this result was obtained, in the flat-lying tract of Darke County, would seem to indicate the long-continued presence of such carbonated water.
Further, as far as the explanation above given applies, it ought to be found that the more highly magnesian the limestone the less should be its specific gravity. A few facts under this head are here given. The determinations of specific gravity were furnished by Prof. Mendenhall, of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege. The comparison is not limited, to the different representa- tives of the Cedarville division, but various limestones of the state are included.
Locality.
Geological Horizon.
Carb.Mag. Sp.Grav.
Top of Guelph, or Cedarville,
50
2.452
Greenville, Darke Co., Yellow Springs,
Bottom of Guelph,
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