History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, Part 33

Author: N. N. Hill, Jr.
Publication date: 1881
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 826

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could not exist in it; hence no fossil remains of such are found in our coal-beds, or in the earth or stone formations of an in- terior age.

"Early in the carboniferous age the coal-plants were doubt- less of comparatively limited size, whose leaves floated on the surface of shallow marshes or lagoons. Gradually those aquatic plants grew larger and larger, the existing and steadily augment- ing conditions for their better development being present, they naturally took root in increasing quantities and strength in those lagoons or marshes whose surfaces were partially covered with water, adding the growth of each year, slowly and silently, to the accumulating mass. As the age advanced these plants attained to a larger and still larger size, whose immense leaves and spreading branches would ultimately die and sink to the bottom, and thus form a bed for succeeding vegetable growths of such proportions and in such quantities as to throw into in- significance anything of the same species in our day! This process, repeated for an indefinitely long period, finally resulted in producing peat, lignite, coal of varions kinds, coke and plumbago. The horse-tail flag, fossilized in coal-beds, has been found fourteen inches in diameter, while now it seldom reaches a thickness of one inch. Club-mosses, even within the tropics, are now of small size, while in coal formation, petrified, they have been found as thick as a man's body and fifty feet or more in length. Our ferns are of diminutive, dwarfish size, but in carboniferous times they reached the height of more than fifty feet. 'Other coal-plants," says Maury, 'grew to the same wonderful proportions, and as they fell others sprang up, and thus the 'heaping' process continued until nature caused some subsidence of the ground, the water closed over it all, and the currents deposited mud or sand; if the former a layer of slate was the ultimate result; if the latter a stratum of sandstone would be formed; and if pebbles were intermingled with the sand, the result would be a layer of conglomerate sandstone, such as we have in great abundance along the banks of the Rocky fork and in the 'Licking narrows,' which, it is plain to be seen, was formed exactly as here suggested.' After this subsidence, and the inundation ceased, the water having formed another bed or channel, fresh growths sprang up and a new deposit was formed, to sink and be covered up in turn; and as often as these periods of rest and submergence were repeated, so often would a new bed of coal come into ex- istence, and in this oft-repeated process is found the simple, ra- tional explanation why the coal measures generally consist of more than one seam or stratum; or in other words why there happen to be intervening or alternate sedimentary strata be- tween the beds or layers of coal, the lower one of these coal strata, and its sedimentary covering, being, in many instances, found to be more than a thousand feet below the surface of the earth. This is undoubtedly more generally the known state of facts in Great Britain, where shaft-mining is the common method, than in the United States, where out-croping beds of coal are mainly utilized, and which in a sense is known as sur- face-mining. The thickness of those sedimentary deposits be- tween the coal strata (sometimes a hundred feet or more), fur- nishes some idea of the immense duration of the uncounted ages or cycles of time that passed by, during the process of their formation. To accomplish a single revolution of the pre- cession of the equinoxes, or what is known as a movement of the equinoctial points from east to west, requires but little less then twenty-five thousand years, and we are told by geologists that very 'many of those revolutions were recorded on nature's

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pages, during the progress of the accumulations of the sedi- mentary substances which formed but a single one of the lay- ers, deep down in the earth, resting upon the surface of a coal- bed below it, and under another above it.

" After the vegeteble deposits which formed coal-beds were covered up, Maury says, 'a gradual decomposition took place, which consisted in an evolution of a portion of the carbon, and most of the hydrogen and oxygen, in the form of water and gasses from the woody tissue, leaving a larger and larger per- centage of the carbon of the plant behind, while the increased pressure of the accumulating strata above, served to compress and solidify the mass,' which before had been in a state of fusion, probably of about the consistence of tar in a mild climate.

"But before this solidification took place, as Liebig has proved by direct experiment, in the process of slow decomposi- tion of vegetable matter in water, a softening had occurred, and it is to this that we must ascribe the fact that no delicate fossils are ever found in the coal itself, as the tissue and form were destroyed by the softening and subsequent pressure, though cases are met with where solid trunks of trees have re- sisted this softening process, and are found standing erect in the seams while their roots are plainly traced in the clay slates below. In the shales and slates above and below, which it will be remembered, were originally soft, plastic mud, naturally, therefore, the plant impressions therein are as sharp and clear as though they had been sketched with an artist's pencil."

After citing various eminent authorities in proof of the correctness of his theory, Mr. Smucker con- tinues :

"From the foregoing it will be seen that I have been dealing with a solved problem, a problem that scientists have often solved by the methods of the laboratory-by the microscope -by critical investigation -- by close examination-by careful observation and philosophical reasoning-by scientific and logical deduction-by intelligent experiment-by accurate in- spection-by established data as to causes and their effects- by the concurrent belief and testimony of nearly all the eminent geologists of Europe and America, who have written upon the subject, and who are supported substantially by most of the learned professors of science in the principal colleges and universities of both the eastern and western continents, and no less by oft-repeated and unmistakable demonstration itself.

"I have expressed the belief in this paper that the process of peat, lignite and perhaps coal production is now going on, as it has been going on through the slow-moving and well-nigh unending geological ages of the past, and probably will continue to go on through all future time! And I will take this occasion to express the belief that there is now in process of formation a bed of peat, within the limits of Newark. The location of this bed of peat is between the North Fork feeder and the North Fork creek. If Locust street were extended due east over the feeder to the creek, it would pass near it.

"Again, I think peat could be found in the swamp between the Central railroad and the Cherry Valley road, a mile or more west of Newark. That swamp was largely a dry prairie, serving the purposes of a race-track until the earthquakes in the Mississippi valley, in 1811-12, when, by depression, it was transformed into a pond, and remained such until it was parti- ally drained, some thirty years ago. The belief is not an un-

reasonable one that peat has been in process of formation there during many of the ages of the past, and that that process :s still going on, and will certainly not ceasc as long as the condi- tions for the production of that material remain favorable.

"And there is but little doubt that the Cranberry marshes in the vicinity of the reservoir and also the Bloody Rur swamps, near Kirkersville, are peat-bearing localities. And finally, I refer to another locality within the limits of Licking county, where the surface or external appearances are equally promising indications of the existence and progressive growth of peat: I mean the Cranberry marsh, in early times called "Warthan's Prairie," and later, "Wilson's Prairie," situated a few miles southeast of Utica. And what is true of the above- named localities is doubtless as true of many points of similar external appearance and surroundings, found to a greater o: less extent in every section of our country."

In another address Mr. Smucker says regard- ing the paleontology of Flint ridge :

"The paleontology of the Flint ridge is as yet comparative'y but little known. The earlier-time records of that locality were ineffaceably engraved there in fossil characters-its primeval history was written deep down in the earth by God and nature, in the unerring language of petrifaction; its old-time annals were indelibly inscribed in the unmistakable nomenclature of geology; upon its extensive beds of minerals, stones and rocks, its organic remains, imbeded in the limestone formations far down beneath the surface, tell us of the great past, when this ridge was in its primeval condition, long ages before man existed or could exist upon it; its vegetation in petrifaction, imprinted with nature's graver, upon its coal and other de- posits, tells us in the more than exactness and certainty of scien- tific language of the long geological ages and carboniferous epochs, now long gone by, when another and more luxuriant vegetation, one much more charged with carbon, grew and flourished there, and when marine organisms also were redun- dant there as well as in contiguous land and water localities. which, largely by water action, contributed the now fossilized vegetable and organic remains found in the coal, limestone and other mineral formations of the Flint ridge.

"But although the lexicon of paleontology is given to us in petrified or stone characters, letters and words, and in well marked fossilized vegetation, such as plants and shrubs and trees, also of distinct and almost living organic forms that were once animate with life, engraved by nature upon our long buried sedimentary stones and rocks and other mineral deposits. nevertheless the careful and persevering student of the alphabet in which that lexicon was written, soon learns to read, translate, interpret and understand it as if it were a matter settled as with the unerring certainty of demonstrated science itself. All this can be done, has been done, and is being constantly done by those who have untiringly and zealously devoted the requisite amount of time, labor and talents to its accomplishment.

'"By the study of organic remains,' said the late Col. Foster. 'it has been discovered that each of the sedimentary deposits has its characteristic fossils. By this means we can determine the epochs of the different formations, identify the same forma- tion at remote points, and throughout all its lithological changes, and even calculate with some degree of certainty the periods when the present mountain chains were lifted up. These fossils,' he continues, 'indicate a progressive develop- ment of organic life from the coral, closely allied to the vege-

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table, up to man, the head of created beings. From them also we learn the various revolutions which the earth has undergone, the changes in the temperature of its surface, and the animals which peopled it in periods far remote.'

"The author of the foregoing paragraph (the late Colonel Foster), when a member of the Ohio corps of geologists, in 1837, explored Flint ridge, in the interest of paleontology, and reported that he found fossilized organic remains there in great perfection and beauty. The following he named as of most frequent occurrence :

"First-Terebratula, that is, a genus of bivalve mollusks of the class Brachiopoda, in which one of the valves is perforated for the transmission of a sort of tendinous ligament, by which the animal fixes itself to submarine animals. This order of molluscous animals is also characterized by two fleshy arms or labial processes, which they can protrude or withdraw, and which serve for prehension.

"Second-Encrini, a fossil belonging to the asteria or star-fish family, consisting of numerous pointed arms radiating from around a centre in which the mouth is situated, and is sup- ported on a jointed stem, therein differing from all the recent asterias.

"Third-Anthophylla, described by Colonel Foster as a min- eral of the horn-blende family, occurring in brittle fibres, or ibrous or bladed masses (primarily flower and leaf,) of differ- ent shades of dark brown, and with a semi-metallic lustre. It consists chiefly of silica, magnesia and oxyd of iron, and is found abundantly in some varieties of primary rocks.

"Fourth-Spirifera, known as an extinct genus of mollusks, having a shell with two internal calcareous spiral appendages. "Fifth-Infusoria, described by Dana as microscopic animals nhabiting waters and liquids of various kinds, and having no organs of motion, except exceedingly minute hairs.

"Sixth-Trilobites, an extinct family of crustacea, found in he earliest fossiliferous strata, Colonel Foster reported, were also found in a limestone on the ridge, and remarked that its occurrence (it being a fossil not observed, generally, in the coal measures), indicated that it flourished there after it had ceased o exist in other countries.

"Seventh-Lingula, which belongs to the grass family of fos- sils, with flat leaves, not including the stem or the sheath of the

stem. One author speaks of some specimens of this class of fossils as having the form of 'a strap-shaped corrolla of flowers.'

" Eighth-Producta, which is an extinct genus, says a late author, of bivalve shells closely allied to the living genus Tere- bratula (described as the first of this list), and which the writer says are found only in the older secondary rocks.

"Professor E. B. Andrews, who, as one of the geological corps of Ohio, explored Flint ridge in 1869, gives us some informa- tion in regard to the palentology of that locality. He says that

the basins or depressions which contain the cannel coal were filled with water while the process of coal formation was going on, which is proved by the abundant presence of the marine shell Lingula.' He also obtained a specimen of Stigmaria, made up of coal itself, which still retained its cylindrical form. It is a fossil coal plant, says Buckland, having a large dome- shaped stem or trunk. Both were found by Professor Andrews most abundant in the lower part of the coal. In the lower coal measures of Flint ridge he also found a specimen of Syno- cladia or Biserialis, that is, a double-rowed class of fossils, notched on the edge like a saw, or a serrate leaf, pointing to the extremity, some of them having the serratures toothed. It grows in very rapidly, spreading, funnel-shaped form, the stems seeming to radiate from the same point, and throwing off on each side lateral branches, which also give off, in the same way, lateral branchlets.

" Professor Andrews also found specimens of the Ptilodictya, or bifurcated ramose, the bifurcations occurring usually at rather distant intervals. They were branched as a stem or root. having lateral divisions, poriferous surfaces, six to eight longi- tudinal rows, separated by spaces of double the diameter of the spores."

Professor Andrews also found shells of the genus Placunopsis, which were slightly oblique, with lengths and breadths nearly equal, cardinal margin nearly straight, not quite equaling the greatest breadth of the valves, beak small, depressed, and but slightly projecting beyond the cardinal margin, near the middle of which it is placed, with scarcely perceptible obliquity.

Another shell was found in the dark shales of the Flint ridge coal measures, described by Professor Andrews as obliquely subovate, compressed, very thin, posterior basal margin regu- larly rounded, and surface marked by regular concentric undu- ations, with intermediate parallel stria.

And still another shell was found on the ridge, which was de- scribed as of large size, of smooth surface, or showing only obscure lines of growth. A full description of most of the foregoing, found by Professor Andrews, is given in volume two, Ohio Paleonthology, pages 326-37.

Professor Andrews also reported a bed of dark blue fossil- iferous limestone, ranging in thickness from twelve to fourteen feet, situated four feet nine inches above the cannel coal at the mine, and separated from it by a deposit of blue clay slate of four inches of bituminous coal, and a stratum of five inches of bituminous slate. This limestone he found abounding in fossils, and he states that he utilized them so far as to make a hand- some collection, but he did not furnish a detailed description of them. The shales and limestone of Flint ridge were found by Professor Andrews to have identically similar fossils. Further explorations would doubtless richly reward, with abundant suc- cess, the palenthologists' labors on the ridge.

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CHAPTER XXI.

ARCHEOLOGY.

MOUND BUILDERS AND INDIANS-ANTIQUITIES-THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF MOUNDS, EFFIGIES AND INCLOSURES :- SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS-SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS-TEMPLE MOUNDS-MOUNDS OF OBSERVATION-MEMORIAL OR MON UMENTAL MOUNDS-EFFIGIES OR ANIMAL MOUNDS-INCLOSURES-COVERED WAYS-SACRED INCLOSURES-LESSONS TAUGHT BY THESE WORKS-PHE IMPLEMENTS USED BY MOUND BUILDERS AND INDIANS.

T back in the bygone time. Lost 'mid the rubbish of forgotten things."

THE archaeologist has found the territory em- braced within the present limits of Licking county a most excellent one. It is probably the most interesting field for the scientist aud antiquari- an in the State or United States. When the wave of white emigration reached the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, the discovery was made of strange looking mounds of earth, here and there, and, after a time, learning that these and other similar works were of pre-historic origin-the work of an unknown race . of people-they were called, in a general way, "Ancient Mounds," and in time the lost race that erected them came to be appropriately named the "Mound Builders." There is no authentic history regarding this people. The known records of the world are silent-as silent as these monuments that perpetuate their memory. There are many the- ories regarding them, but this is all that can be said -nothing of their origin or end is certainly known.

They probably antedate the various Indian tribes who anciently occupied and claimed title to the soil of Ohio. Probably many centuries elapsed between the first occupancy here by the Mound Builders and the advent of the earliest Indian tribes or nations, though this is only conjecture.

This county was once, and, peradventure, con- tinued to be through many passing centuries, their most favored locality. The extent, variety, elab- orate, and labyrinthian intricacies of their works, still found in many sections of Ohio, clearly indi- cate the plausibility of this view. Here they dwelt for ages, erected their works and made a long chapter of history, albeit it is yet unwritten-a

history whose leading features and general charac teristics can be gathered only from those of thei works that yet exist. It must be collected scrap by scrap, and item by item, after a thorough examina tion and patient investigation of their works, and by careful, laborious, faithful study of their won derful remains. The principal events and leadin incidents in the strange career of this mysterion and apparently now extinct people, can be trace out and recorded only so far as they are clearly in dicated by those of their works which yet remain but which, it is to be regretted, are, to a large er tent, in a state of mutilation and partial ruin, an rapidly tending to utter extinction under incond clastic wantonness, and the operations of th plow; also from the devastating effects of the ek ments, and the destructive tendencies of the gre. destroyer-Time.

There is no reason to believe that the Moun Builders ever had a written language, and, if the had not, it must be manifest that very few auther tic facts pertaining to their domestic and local hi tory, can be verified by reliable testimony othe than that deduced from their works, which are th sole memorials left by them to enable us to work of the problems of their origin, their history, habit manners, customs, general characteristics, mode life, the extent of their knowledge of the arts, husbandry, their state of civilization, their religio and its rites, their ultimate fate, and the mann and circumstances of their final disappearano whether by process of absorption from intermin ling and intermarrying with other and more vigo ous races, by dispersion or captivity, or by extin tion through war, pestilence, or famine.

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HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.

Although generation after generation of Mound Builders here lived and flourished, and, peradven- ture, reached the acme of their glory, then passed through age after age of decadence and decrepi- tude into "the receptacle of things lost upon earth," without leaving anything that may properly be called history; and though no records of their exploits have come down to this generation through the intervening centuries, yet their enduring works furnish the laborious student some indications, even though they be slight, of the characteristics of their builders, and afford some data as to the probable history they made during the unknown, perchance barren, uneventful cycles of their indefi- nitely long career as a nation or race.

As the history of the Mound Builders is yet un- written, it is certainly a matter of gratulation that so many way-marks and traces of this people yet remain within the boundaries of Ohio. Their works in the State, still existing in a tolerably per- fect condition, are approximately estimated at ten thousand, but they doubtless far exceeded that number at the time of the first permanent Anglo- American settlement here, in 1788.

Only such monuments, or remains of ancient works can be properly ascribed to the Mound Builders as were really regarded by the Indian tribes at the period of the first settlement at Mari- etta as antiquities, or as the ruins and relics of an extinct race, and "concerning the origin of which they were wholly ignorant, or only possessed a traditionary knowledge."

These consisted of mounds, effigies and inclos- ures, which are known and designated as the three general classes of ancient works that can be appro- priately regarded as belonging to the Mound Build- ers. Mounds are sub divided into sepulchral, sac- rificial, temple (or truncated); also of observation, and memorial or monumental.

Effigies are sometimes called animal mounds, sometimes emblematic, and frequently symbolical.

Inclosures are of several kinds, one class being known as military or defensive works; another as parallel embankments or covered ways; and the third as sacred inclosures.

Under the general title of inclosures, are also walls of circumvalation or ramparts constructed for military or defensive works, while others were

doubtless walls surrounding the residence of the reigning monarch; perchance others were erected for the performance within them of their national games and amusements, and perhaps many also served a purpose in the performance of their re- ligious rites and ceremonies, and facilitated indul- gence in some superstitious practices.

Most of the above named works were constructed of earth, a few of stone, and perhaps fewer still of earth and stone combined. The title each bears indicates, in a measure, the uses they are supposed to have served.

Sepulchral mounds are generally conical in form and are more numerous than any other kinds. They are of all sizes, ranging from a very small al- titude, to about seventy feet in height, and always contain one or more skeletons, or parts thereof, or present other plausible indications of having been built or used for purposes of sepulture, and were, unmistakably, memorials raised over the dead.

By some archaeologists it is maintained that the size of these mounds bears a certain relation to the importance, when living, of the person over whose remains they were erected.

In this class of mounds are often found imple- ments and ornaments, supposed to have been buried with the person or persons there interred, under the superstitious and delusive notion, still entertained by some tribes of American Indians, who indulge in similar practices, that they might be useful to them in the happy hunting grounds of the future state.

The practice being one common to both the In- dians and Mound Builders, apparently connects the former with the latter, and raises the presump- tion that the Indians may have descended from the Mound Builders.

That fire was used in the burial ceremonies of the Mound Builders is manifest from the fact that charcoal is often, if not always, found in close proximity to the skeleton. The presence of ashes, igneous stones, and other traces of the action of fire in these tombs, renders it quite probable this element was employed in their burial ceremonies.

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History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, Part 33

Author: N. N. Hill, Jr. Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Number of Pages: 826

Author: N. N. Hill, Jr.
Publication date: 1881
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 826