USA > Ohio > Lorain County > History of Lorain County, Ohio > Part 5
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. Ross COUNTY, OHIO .- Wood apparently cedar, from a well thirty feet deep."-Col. Charles I hittlesey.
"ALL THROUGH SOUTHERN INDIANA -Ancient soil, with peat, muck, rooted stumps, trunks, branches and leaves of irres, sixty to one hundred and twenty feet below the surface, called 'Noah's Cattle Yard." Wells spoiled hy them."-John Collett.
" lowA .- An old soil, with buried timber from forty to fifty feet be- neath the surface, strnek in sinking wells in several counties."-Morris Miller.
" WADSWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN .- Timber resembling white cedar, from a well eighteen feet deep in the prairie region, and about two hundred and fifty feet above the surface of Lake Michigan."-J. A. Lapham.
" GRAND SANLE, SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR .- Layers of roots, and timber of trees, sometimes twelve or fourteen feet thick, resting on clay, inter-stratified with gravel, three hundred feet thick."-Sir IVm. Logan, in Geology of Canada.
"MONTGOMERY COUNTY, OHIO. - Beds of peat, from twelve to twenty feet in thickness, containing quantities of coniferous wood, with twigs, branches and berries of red cedar; also containing bones of the elephant and mastodon, and teeth of the giant beaver; the whole covered with ninety feet of sand."-Prof Orton.
"TORONTO, CANADA,-Trunks and branches of trees, embedded in yellow clay, at a depth of from ten to twenty feet from the surface." -Prof. Ilind.
We do not wish it understood that these remains of trees and animals were all buried beneath a drift deposit at one and the same time; but we do say that all over this wide extent of country there once existed a heavy growth of forest trees, with animals of huge dimensions roaming through them, both of which have become extinct, and are now deeply buried be- neath a drift deposit. From all the light that we can gather from these and other facts, it is evident that our continent has been raised and again submerged beneath the ocean several times since the cozoie age, at least all of it except the few localities heretofore mentioned.
MASTODONS AND ELEPHANTS.
Not only forest trees, but the remains of large ani- mals have been found in many localities in Northern Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. These remains are mostly found in deep marshes and peat bogs, which were, when these animals lived, small lakes. In some instances, the leg and other lower bones of the mas-
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HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
todon and elephant have been found in a standing position, showing that in going to these places for water, they must have been mired, and their great weight and elumsiness prevented their extricating themselves. These lakes have now become peat marshes by the continned accumulation of leaves, mosses and other vegetation which now cover their bones many feet deep. No remains of these animals have been found in this county, but it is possible that there might be, npon proper search for them in and about the swamps of Brighton and Camden; as, from the location of these swamps. I have no doubt that those places were favorite resorts for these animals.
A few years since, some of the ribs, vertebra, a part of a tooth, the tusks and some other bones of a mas- todon were found in Montville, Medina county. The bones were more or less broken. and were supposed to belong to a young animal. The tusks were broken off at their points, and were about four feet long, largest in the middle and tapered towards the point and base: the ribs, which were somewhat broken, were five inches wide.
In Cleveland the remains of a large animal were found in excavating a cellar on Ontario street. The knights of the spade and pick, not knowing what they were, or not caring, carted the most of them off, and they were dumped away, broken and destroyed. Ilow- ever, a few teeth and vertebræ were saved, and are now in the Western Reserve Historical Society rooms in that city. Dr. E. Sterling called my attention to these bones at the time. Upon examination they were found to be the remains of a very large elephant. (Elephas Americanus. ) These bones were not found as usual in a low marshy place, but on high land, in sand and gravel. It is altogether probable that they were washed in and covered up when the lake stood at that level. These huge animals roamed over all of northern Ohio for a long time after the accumu- lation of its ancient soil and great forests, up to a recent period. geologically speaking, that is up to about the time of the formation of the sand ridges. Whether they became extinet about this time, by some sudden climatic or other change, or gradually died out, we are unable to determine. The only record we have of them is their bones and the location in which they are found. Their bones not being fossilized are liable to deeay on exposure to the atmosphere, except the teeth and tusks, which being enameled are usually well preserved. There are, however, a few well preserved whole skeletons of these great American animals of our primeval forests.
TERRACES.
We now come to the last epoch or phase in the series of drift deposits: " Terraces and Sand-ridges." These belong to our present geological time, that is, there have been no great changes since their deposi- tion, or rather they are the result of the last change in the Lake Erie basin. Although we speak of them
as of a recent formation, or the last, yet we must remember that they were formed ages before man came into being. This was the last act in the geologi- cal drama that was performed to fit and prepare the earth for man's abode.
At no time previous to this epoch could man have lived upon the earth for a single year. but now all is changed, the right conditions have been reached as to soil, climate, and the class of animals suited to his wants; all is prepared and ready for his advent; and in his own good lime the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.
Of the terraces I can only give a very meager description, having given them but a passing thought among my other researches in the county until about two years ago, when I became convinced that they held a very conspicuous place in the topogrophy of the county; I then commenced regular field work upon them and have traced ont and located two of them quite satisfactorily. The last terrace now visible I found about one and a half miles from the present shore line, and at an altitude of forty feet above lake level. It follows nearly the present eontour of the lake shore. It is very evident that the water receded to a broad river after these terraces were formed, and now by gradually wearing its way back inland, its shore follows nearly the same lines that it left in its reeedence. ] have traced this terrace most of the way from the Vermillion to Black River, and all the way from Black River east fifteen miles into Dover, Cuya- hoga county. I have no doubt but that it can readily be traced the whole length of the lake shore. At Avon Point it does not make the sharp angle of the shore, but merely makes a gentle curve to the north. The soil is clay. with its surface somewhat mixed with gravel. The timber upon it is mostly hard maple. beech and hickory, and that upon either side of it, is black ash, soft maple, elm. &c. Its rise from the north is very perceptible, and upon the farms through which it passes it is usually selected as the building spot if at all convenient, as it is the dryest land. These terraces were formed by the natural wearing of the water against the shore, at which level the water stood for a considerable period of time, and then by a sudden recedence caused by the breaking away of the barrier at the outlet, the water dropped away from this line leaving it a natural terrace. Should Lake Erie, by the sudden breaking away of Niagara, be drained forty feet lower than it now is, its present shore line would form just such a terrace as the one now under consid- eration was when it was left by the retreating waters. Its many years of weather-wear since, has given it its present appearance and sloping condition. There is a succession of these terraces, each one higher than the last, as we go south through the county, one sonth of Wellington has an altitude of three hundred and sixty feet above lake level. Please remember that F reckon all altitudes from lake level,-that when } speak of any height, it is so many feet above the level
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HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
of the lake. Lake Erie is five hundred and sixty five feet above the ocean level.
These terraces no doubt continue on up to the summit, that is, the high-lands or divide, between the waters of the Ohio river, and Lake Erie, which here have an altitude of seven hundred and seventy-three feet. The highest land in the State. which lies south- west from here in Logan county has an altitude of nine hundred and seventy-tive feet. Wellington stands at two hundred and eighty-six feet: Oberlin, two hun- dred and tifty-three fret : Elyria one hundred and fifty- five feet, and Amherst one hundred and twenty-two feet, gradually sloping away to the lake. These dif- ferent altitudes are caused, partly by the glaciers plow- ing deeper into the rocks in its center, and partly by the formation of these terraces by the retreating waters. The next terrace south of the one above described is the largest and most distinct of all of them. This was undoubtedly caused by the water standing at this level for a longer period of time than elsewhere. It lies about four miles back from the lake, at an altitude of about one hundred and five feet. In Amherst. Sheffield, Avon and a part of Dover, the old sand- beach. called the North ridge, rests directly upon it. but in some places in Cuyahoga county, as in Dover, Rockport and Euclid, east of Cleveland, it is separate and distinct from the ridge, and very marked in its character.
I hardly deem it necessary to go back farther and traer ont others of these shore line terraces, a deserip- tion of these two being sufficient to give us all the knowledge we need as to their formation and char- acter.
SAND RIDGES.
Our beautiful ridges, running through the county nearly parallel with the lake east and west, are the last link in the geological chain. They are the last land- marks, or rather the last water-marks, that were left by the retreating waters. Upon these ridges the pioneer first built his log-cabin; along them ran the first wagon-roads. The first settlers all strove to build upon, and cultivate the ridges. Their light sandy soil, natural drainage, and easy cultivation, made them a very desirable location for the pioneer. There are several theories as to the cause of their formation: one is that they are morains left by the retreating glaciers: (morains are the debris that is pushed out from under the glacier and left at its sides as it moves on over the surface); another is that they are off-shore sand-bars; but the one that is now most generally accepted is that they are old beach-lines left by the rrereding waters in their successive stages of rest. There are three continuous ridges running through the county besides several local ones.
The Butternut Ridge was the first formed. At this level the water remained for a long period of time. until all the accumulation of that old beach was washed and blown up by the combined agency of the water and the winds; then a sudden breaking away
of the barrier at the outlet caused the water to fall thirteen feet, and then another period of rest that formed Chestnut ridge. A breaking away of twenty- four feet more and we have Sugar ridge; of seven more and we have Center ridge. Here was a longer period of rest, which formed a continuous ridge the whole length of the lake. Another recedence of fifty- two feet brought it to the line ou which the North, or last continuous ridge now rests. I have examined no less than ten of these sand ridges in our county and have taken their altitude in many places.
The fact that both terraces and sand ridges were the result of old shore lines, naturally led to the question why do we not find sand-ridges as far south as we do terraces? This question, to my mind, is easily answered. The ridges were formed from the sand that was worn from the rocks by the action of water: hence these ridges are only found within the limits of the horizon of sand-rock exposure.
It is evident that these rocks could be worn but very little, if at all, while submerged; but when the water receded and became low enough to expose them as cliffs and shore lines, then the ever-ceaseless waves of summer, of which no rock-bound shore can resist their slow but sure advance, and the frosts and grinding ice of winter commenced their destructive eroding process, which ground from these rocks large quantities of sand, which was taken up by the under- tow and waves and piled high upon the near shore beach.
We will now take up the ridges in the order in which we find them, beginning at the lowest or last sand beach formed, giving only their location, altitude and most interesting features:
North Ridge .- This ridge at Avon, one mile east of the center and four from the lake, according to my measurement in 1866. has an altitude of one hundred and six feet. At the centre it is some sixteen feet higher. composed of tiner sand, blown up by the winds into a broad knoll, upon which the early set- tlers buried their dead, and upon which now rests the beautiful Avon cemetery. This ridge bears nearer the contonr of the present lake shore line than any of the other ridges. It runs through Avon, Sheffield, southeast corner of Black River, Amherst and Brown- helm. I shall only give the townships in our county in which these ridges are located.
C'entre Ridge .- In Ridgeville this has an altitude of one hundred and sixty-two feet. In the eastern part of Ridgeville, it takes the form of a double ridge, beginning on the farm of Laurel Beebe and extending about a mile and a half to the farm of lehabod Ter- rell, when it divides into two distinct ridges, and these continue on to the western part of the township, where. on the farm of John Cahoon, they unite again into one ridge. In this double ridge is remarkably well shown the part the winds played in the forma- tion of these ridges. The north. and very much the lower half, is coarse sand and gravel, while the south and larger part is composed of tine sand, which, being
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HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
lighter, was separated and blown up from the coarser by the winds, day by day and year by year, as it accumulated upon the beach, until it was piled high above the other. I can give no other theory for this phenomenon. This ridge was used as the first wagon road in the county, and as long as stage coaches were run, it was the old stage road between Buffalo and Detroit. It lies through Ridgeville, Elyria, Amherst. extreme northwest corner of Russia and Henrietta.
South, or Butternut Ridge, in Ridgeville. has an altitude of two hundred and four feet. It runs through Ridgeville, northwest corner of Eaton and Carlisle. A description of either one of these three continuous ridges is a description of the other two, with the exception of its location and altitude. The balance of the ridges in the county are intermediate or local. Of these,
Chestnut Ridge is the longest. It lies between the center and south ridges. It commences in Olmsted, Cuyahoga county, and runs through Ridgeville, north- west corner of Eaton, and ends in Carlisle. Its course is northeast and southwest, its altitude one hundred and eighty-one feet.
Sugar Ridge lies in Ridgeville, between the Chest- nnt and Center ridges; commencing a mile southwest of the center of Ridgeville; it runs due southwest two miles, and has an altitude of one hundred and sixty- seven feet.
Stony Ridge is another of the Ridgeville ridges, and is rightly named, it is the stoniest ridge in the county. and the stoniest one I ever saw. It begins about a mile and a half northwest from the center, and runs west-northwest. From its peculiar location with ref- erence to the other ridges, and the topography of the surrounding country, and also its formation being water-worn sandstones, many of them quite large, I am inelined to believe that this ridge was formed as an off-shore sand bar in shallow water, and not as a sand beach. These water-worn sandstones are from the shelly cliffs of the Ohio sandstone, and are so thickly scattered over the surface that in many places cul- tivation is impracticable until they are picked np and thrown into heaps. They are thin, flat, rounded stones, from the size of gravel to fifteen or twenty pounds weight. It seems to me impossible that this ridge could have been formed as a beach line. I therefore give it as my opinion that it is an off-shore. shallow-water sand bar.
Murray Ridge is a short ridge two miles west of Elyria, in that township. Its course is nearly north and south; it branches off from the main or center ridge to the south: altitude, one hundred and ninety- eight feet.
Middle Ridge commences in the extreme southwest corner of Sheffield, runs through the northwest corner of Elyria, and through Amherst in a southwesterly direction: altitude, one hundred and forty-eight feet.
Whittlesey Ridge is about two miles from the lake, and has an altitude of from ninety to one hundred
feet. It extends southwest from Beaver creek in Amherst to the Vermillion river in Brownhelm. It is the nearest of all the ridges to the lake that runs parallel with it.
A ridge runs out from Elyria west of north through the township upon which is located the Black River road. Its altitude is about one hundred and fifty feet. It is a spur or offshoot from the Center ridge. Often while driving along this beautiful ridge, have I looked off across to the east and north over the well cultivated farms, and pictured to myself this arm of a great inland sea coming up to the very foot of this ridge and extending off to the east along the slope of the Center ridge, forming in this obtuse angle a beautiful bay. This was long before there was a human being upon the face of the earth to behold the beautiful things that God had created; and yet there were no less beautiful things then than now, with all the teeming millions of human eyes to behold with wondering admiration.
The main ridges all run parallel with the lake, and as a consequence presented a barrier to the natural drainage of the land. The water coming down from the higher lands on the south, settled in behind these ridges, forming ponds or small lakes, which, as vege- tation slowly accumulated, finally became swamps. Ilence we find on the sonth side of all our ridges. these swamps.
ROCK FORMATIONS.
By the fossil remains of the fauna and flora, in the geological strata of past ages, the geologist is enabled to read with tolerable certainty the condition of the globe at any given period of its history. Fossils are the working capital of the geologist, for by these only can he tell equivalent rocks and their relative positions. No Silurian fossils are ever found above or below the Silurian age; Devonian fossils are never found in the Silurian or carboniferous ages; but each distinctive age had its own peculiar animal and vegetable life for which it was then adapted; that is, the fauna and flora which belonged to that and no other age. This is also trne of the different epochs and subdivisions of time. No fossils are found in the one that belong to the other. Hence, when the Silnrian age closed, with it closed all the teeming millions of animal life that then existed; and so it is with cach successive age. No bridging over from one age to the other: no connecting link between the two. But, on the contrary, the line of demarkation is very plainly drawn between each successive age of the world, by means of the fossils they contain.
I do not wish to be understood that we do not tind fossils in one age that may not represent in some way those of another. for we know that we find trilobites which are a crustacean in the very lower Silurian, and we find living crustacean to-day but no trilobites. The farmer knows that he gathers apples from apple trees, and hickory nuts from hickory trees. Just as sure does the geologist know when he finds a fossil
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HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
to what class of rocks and age it belongs. " By their fossils ye shall know them."
CUYAHOGA SHALE.
The highest or first surface rock in Lorain county is called the Cuyahoga shale, from its fine exposure on the banks of the Cuyahoga river. It underlies all the southern part of the county, and is the first rock above the sandstone, having its ont-crop along the streams through the middle and southern portion of the county. It is a fine, hard, impervious, argilla- ceous, gray shale, with occasionally thin bands of pearly sandstone running through it, but is of no economic value. In its decomposition it produces a coll, wet. tenacions soil, of little value for tillage; and it is well for the farmers that they get but little of it. It is one of the most uninteresting of all the series. It holds no minerals of valne and but few fossils of interest. Much of its upper portion has been removed by glacial attrition, leaving its average thickness about one hundred and fifty feet.
The Cuyahoga shale is the uppermost member of the Waverly group. The Waverly is of carboniferous age and is the lowest group of carbonifereons rocks. In Lorain county this group is subdivided into four members, namely: Cuyahoga shale, Ohio sandstone, Bedford shale, and Cleveland shale.
SAND ROCK
AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE.
In the fall of 1877 I made a tour of the rocks and quarries of Elyria, Amherst and Brownhelm. For years I have occasionally visited some one or more of these magnificent quarries, but never before made a tonr of the whole. I was hardly prepared to realize the vast magnitude of the work going on here. The stone annually handled is simply enormons. In nearly all these quarries work was being vigorously pushed although it was late and in the closing season. It was cheery and pleasant to hear the click, click of the pick, chiset and drill, as I went from quarry to quarry. I found more or less fossilized wood, appa- rently coniferous (cedar family), but no shells or other animal fossils. Although at Berea, in the same formation, there has been found shark's teeth (clu- dodus), and a species of shells (lingula scofica).
In Clough's quarry I found a seam in the rock that deserves more than a passing notice. It was about two feet wide from top to bottom and nearly vertical, extending from the top to the depth they had quar- ried, tifty feet, and how much farther we cannot tell, but undoubtedly to the very bottom of the rock. There are two canses combined which could have pro- duced this singular break, although they may have been long ages apart: an internal disturbance which raised the rock and opened the seam. But had the rock remained in its raised position the crevice would not have been of uniform width, but would have been V shaped, or widest at the top; or, had the rock set- tled back to its original level, the seam would have
been closed. This last is probably just what was done, as we find it of the same width all the way from base to summit, tilted with bluish clay and frag- ments of stone, some of them showing erosion. Now it hardly seems possible that this massive rock of millions of tous in settling back to position could have moved at its base sufficient to have left such a seam as this, and certainly it would not have been filled with such a mass of hard clay and other mate- rial that we now find in it.
But. in the ice period there was another agency at work: the great glaciers, which passed over these rocks (for their marks are on them) from east to west, tearing down mountains and filling up valleys in their course. This power, and this alone it seems to me, was adequate to have separated this rock (the break having already been made) and moved it to the west sufficient to leave this crevice which we now find tilled up with clay-mud and other debris.
I do not wish to be understood that this is the only possible solution of this strange phenomenon. But after giving it careful study, this is the theory I have arrived at. Ialso found a similar break nearly in the center of the Worthington quarry.
We found upon inquiry at the different quarries that the number of men employed during the season is about six hundred. And here let me say that the gentlemanly proprietors and their foremen laid ns under many obligations for valuable information. They were all, without a single exception, willing to stop and show us through their quarries and machin- ery, and also to give any information desired in regard to the quality of stone, shipments, etc. We found these foremen not only well informed, intelligent men, but some of them quite good geologists, who could talk about other rocks than Amherst sandstone.
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