USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 7
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The surface of the county, excluding the valley of the Miami, would average about 75 feet above the water in the canal. Before the water- courses had worn their channels in the drift, the surface, nearly level, sloped gently toward the south from the dividing ridge; north of that line still less toward the north.
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The drainage is very simple. The water which falls on the surface of the county is drained off by the Miami river and its tributaries, with the exception of a strip north of the Kettler turnpike, of a width of about two miles, and but little greater in the other dimension. This is drained into the Maumee. The Miami flows from the county on the south at a point about midway from east to west. Near this point .it receives its most impor- tant tributary, the Loramie, coming from the northwest, along whose course in the county the Miami canal is conducted. This tributary, besides per- forming an important part in the drainage of the county, is immensely valuable in relation to the canal, the Loramie reservoir being formed in this stream. Coming into the county about centrally on the north, a small stream, it moves sluggishly over the flat district which forms the dividing ridge, and gradually moving its course to the west, reaches a point in its journey far to the western part of the county, where its course is turned to the south in connection with important accessions to its volume of water; cutting a decided channel and receiving important accessions from both sides, it gradually returns eastward to midway of the county, where it (lebouches into the Miami. It is in the upper part of its course, just where it leaves its sluggish meanderings on the high land of the water-shed, that the important reservoir which receives its name from the creek is situated. There is a descent of 75 or 80 feet from the bottom of the reservoir to the mouth of the Loramie. The eastern part of the county is drained by other tributaries of the Miami. The Tawawa, formed by the junction of the Leatherwood and Mosquito creeks, is an excellent mill stream, and drains the principal part of the county east of the Miami river. From the appear- ance of this stream in the dry months of July and August, I conclude it is largely fed by springs, as the volume of water was kept up to a good stage when many other streams had failed. There are some copious springs in the county, but they do not form such a feature as they do in some other counties situated at a lower level. . As might be expected, the high land west of the Miami has fewer and less copious springs than are found in less elevated localities in the county. In conclusion of this subject, the drain- age of the county by natural channels is ample.
The character of the soil out of the river and creek bottoms depends upon the nature of the underlying drift. The drift will be spoken of more particularly further on. The soil in the river bottoms is composed largely of partially decomposed vegetable matter. There is nothing peculiar about this class of soils in this county. except that on some of the tributaries of the Miami, as Plum creek, there is an unusual body of it compared with the size of the creek. The explanation of this seems to be that in the upper course of this stream especially, the fall in the bed of the creek is often very slight. and the drainage was very imperfect. Before the country was cleared the water was still more impeded by rubbish and undergrowth, and it stood on the ground for at least a portion of the year. Large accumulations of vege- table mould took place, which the size of the streams, as seen today, do not seem adequate to produce. This mould is not alluvium, but the result of
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vegetable growth on the spot. It has not been washed thither by the water, but the vegetation which made it, grew up in the swamps which existed along this sluggish watercourse. The upland soil in the county is naturally divided into two classes, one called black soil, composed of the clay of the drift, mixed with a greater or less proportion of vegetable mould; the other is light-colored, "thin" soil, with little vegetable matter. The dark-colored soil is related in origin to that of the creek bottoms or flats, just referred to. Wherever the water formed swampy districts, there accumulated vege- table matter. Some of these places were yet swampy at the first settlement of the country, and were shunned as unhealthy localities; but others, often extensive, were no longer swampy, but from channels being worn through them or out of them, were dry, and invited, not in vain, the early settler. The face of the country may have changed so that the land is readily drained at present and this still be the true explanation of these black lands in this and adjoining counties. Moisture made rank and abundant vegetation, while it also impeded its entire decay. The partially decayed vegetable products accumulated, and mingling with the clay below, formed that rich, dark-brown loam. But there is unfortunately a large area of thin and light-colored soil in the county than of the soil just described. This thin soil is not peculiar to this county, but is found in other counties situated in like manner. Its color shows it to be quite destitute of the products of vegetation. It differs equally from the yellow clay soils of the uplands of Butler, Warren and Hamilton counties, and seems less capable of being made productive. The clay of this class of soils is impermeable to water, and is so situated that water has drained off readily, and has not stood upon it in natural swamps. The soil is com- posed of a fine-grained material and is compact, and sheds water like a roof. How the circumstances in which the fine-grained material was depos- ited differed from those in which other drift deposits were made, I will not undertake to state. This soil seems to have been exhausted rather than enriched by ages of primeval vegetation. What chemical analysis would show it to lack of fertilizing material, I cannot say, but the deficiency of limestone pebbles in it would indicate that it might be lacking in lime, and it has not had the advantage of being overspread with decaying boulders, which add to a soil potash and other fertilizing ingredients. It seems to have been the least fine sediment deposited from receding water-lifeless water.
This soil, lying so as to drain away water, and not of a nature to absorb and retain it, became covered slowly with vegetation. But it always lacked that rankness and exuberance of vegetation which lower and moister places possessed. Still many, countless generations of plants and unknown crops of trees have grown and decayed here without leaving behind them much vegetable matter commingled with the soil. What has become of the sub- stance of plants that it has not accumulated in the soil? The answer must be that the growth upon this soil have passed back to their original elements -have gone as they came-in the form of water and gases. The bulk of vegetation is composed of water (oxygen and hydrogen), carbonic acid
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(carbon and oxygen), and nitrogen. When vegetation decays these mate- rials are evolved, and pass off into the atmosphere. It is when decay is impeded that vegetable matter accumulates in the soil. Mould is partially decayed vegetation. When vegetable products are protected from the atmos- phere by water their decay is retarded and impeded, and certain compounds are formed of a complex character, which do not so readily undergo decom- position. This is what we call vegetable mould, inixed with clay-loam. In dry situations, exposed to the action of the atmosphere, logs, grass, leaves, straw, utterly disappear and leave no trace behind. The same mate- rial heaped together, in wet situations, does not entirely decay, as every one must have observed, but gradually disintegrates, and becomes a uniform mass of dark-colored matter. \ cool situation makes this process more sure and complete. Partially decayed vegetation becomes mould, muck or peat, according to the material, the location and extent of the process of decay. These vegetable compounds do not decay readily, but do gradually, and hence results a common experience in the use of muck as manure. Until a dissolution of the muck occurs, it will not nurture vegetation, hence it is often necessary for it to be exposed a season or two to the action of the atmosphere before it becomes sufficiently advanced in decomposition to give up its elements of fertility to vegetation. My conclusion is that this light- colored soil, not being a good absorber of water, and being so situated as to drain it off readily, the vast amount of vegetation, in different forms, which has grown upon it has entirely decayed and passed off in the forms in which its elements first came to it. namely, as gases.
Here is the place to speak of one of the most interesting features of this upland soil in the county-the fine beds of peat which mark the line of the water-shed. Peat is a vegetable product-it is an accumulation of vegetable matter in circumstances in which decay is arrested. . \ cool climate and a moist situation are the conditions in which peat is formed. On the scarcely sloping tract, lying just where the drainage, being both ways, was effective neither way, and where the surface was formed of a soil quite impermeable to water, we find to-day several extensive beds of peat of good quality. They lie in Van Buren township, and near the line of the new Kettler turnpike. Mr. William Kettler owns about 140 acres of peat; in section ten of the same township are 140 acres more; in section fourteen, ten acres; in sec- tion twenty-two, about thirty acres, and smaller quantities in one or two other places, being over 300 acres in all. It is not certainly known how (leep these beds are; it is supposed they will average at least ten feet. I did not learn the facts upon which this belief rests, but, from the character of the men from whom I obtained the information, I feel that the statement can be relied upon. Where I examined the peat, on Mr. Kettler's farm. although large ditches had been conducted through it to drain it, there was no place where the bottom could be seen, nor the distance to it from the bottom of the ditch be ascertained, by such explorations as we could make with a fence-stake.
On this water-shed the effect of continued washing is seen in a slight
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furrowing of the surface into broad and shallow troughs, leading toward the drainage of Loramie creek. Suppose that at a time when all the region was densely covered with forest and protected from the sun's rays, the fall- ing of a tree, or the erection of a dam by beavers should have cut off the passage of the water, bogs of greater or less extent and depth would have been formed. In these vegetation would soon flourish suited to such locali- ties-plants which flourish in and near moisture-coarse grasses and vines, luxuriant ferns, and particularly the sphagnous mosses which are known to compose so large a proportion of peat-beds. We can hardly conceive of the rapidity with which the accumulation of vegetable material takes place in such circumstances. The remains of beaver dams are still confidently pointed out by residents there, and the traditions of the county are numer- ous, and corroborative in regard to the existence of these ingenious animals at a time not long antedating the memory of the "oldest inhabitant." In complete confirmation of this general conviction, I have in my possession teeth of the beaver found in the county.
The peat is of a uniform consistence and of a drab color, where freshly exposed. On the surface, where it has been drained, it is sufficiently decom- posed to nourish the most luxuriant vegetation which I saw in the county --- vines, grasses, briers, bushes, and ferns, and, where under cultivation, the finest of corn erops. The beds are purely vegetable; neither on the surface, nor beneath it, could there be distinguished a particle of earth mixed with the peat. Being about at the Summit, there was no source from which earth could have been washed into the forming peat. When dry it burns readily with a cheerful blaze and rather strong odor, glowing like the embers of leaves in a draft. It is not, however, used as fuel, on account of the great abundance of wood in that region and its distance from any market, and doubtless the day is remote when it will be in demand as fuel on account of the abundance of coal even more convenient to the great mar- kets than these beds of peat. The great productiveness of the porous, friable upper crust, where the beds have been drained, suggests a use for this mate- rial of great interest. It is contiguous to these great beds of peat that the thin, light-colored soils, so destitute of vegetable mould, abound. Here is a supply, not easily exhausted, of the very material which that soil needs. If these beds average ten feet in thickness, there is enough vegetable matter in them to cover, to the depth of one-half a foot, nearly ten square miles of land. I pointed out to Mr. William Kettler a danger which threatens the destruction of those beds which are perfectly drained. He has dug large trenches through his extensive beds for the purpose of drying them to bring them into cultivation. Where the peat becomes dry it is porous, light, and friable. It requires no breaking up to receive the crop, but is only fur- rowed out to secure precision in the rows of corn that it may be worked with the plough. The process of drying must continue from year to year where the system of drainage is complete. The result may be disastrous if such a bed of inflammable matter is exposed, as it must be, to the malice or carelessness of any one who might set fire to it in the extremely dry
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weather of our late summer seasons. Already, imperfectly dried out as the beds are yet, where persons have carelessly allowed fire to catch in the sur- face of the peat, deep holes have been burned, extending, doubtless, to the undried substratum. No means that could be brought to bear in those regions would be effectual in quenching a fire in one of those peat beds if they are once thoroughly dried out. The remedy I would suggest is one of pre- vention-it is to close up the system of drains during the winter, allowing the water to stand in them, saturating the beds completely. The drains being opened in the spring, the beds of peat would not become fully dried out during summer. By retaining moisture they will bring better crops and be safe from conflagration.
The Rain-fall-This county is near the border of the area marked in the "Rain-Chart" of the Smithsonian institution in which the average of rain-fall is forty inches. In the absence of other reliable data, any indefinite impressions that the amount is less than this must be disregarded. We are apt to judge by the effects; for example, the state of the crops, whereas the larger portion of the rain-fall is at a season when no visible influence can reach the crops from it. Plainly, all the rain and snow-water, which runs off the frozen crust of the ground in the winter does not affect, one way or the other, the crops of the ensuing summer. . The same can be said of the most of the rain, which runs off as soon as it falls, at any season.
An interest attaches to the amount of water which falls, in various forms, in this and the adjoining counties, particularly to the northeast, on account of the requirements of the canal. Data are wanting for determining the amount of water carried off by the canal and the river from the area above the summit-level of the canal in this and the adjoining counties on the northeast. The nature of the soil is such that it will shed as large a proportion of the water which falls upon it as any other soil in the state. An immense quantity flows from above the highest level of the canal without any advantage to the canal. It is equally true that a much greater propor- tion of it could be utilized than actually finds its way into the canal-enough, certainly, to remove the question of the supply of water out of the discussion concerning the abandonment of the canal.
The Loramie Reservoir-This body of water, covering at present but little over 2,000 acres of land, lies wholly in Shelby county, and although not one of the largest of the state reservoirs, nor the most important, still it is exceedingly valuable to successful navigation in the summer and early fall. The bottom of the reservoir is about eight feet above the summit- level of the canal. It is supplied by the drainage of about 65 or 70 square miles. Being near the water-shed, the surface from which water can be col- lected into the reservoir is limited, and less water comes from springs than would be the case in many other localities not so high. While the main reli- ance is on drainage from a limited surface, still such is the nature of the sur- face-soil, that a much larger proportion of the water falls upon the surface runs off at once than would run from soil of a more porous character, or one underlaid by large beds of clean gravel, or sand, or porous rock. The
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construction of roads, drains, and ditches, as well as the clearing away of the timber and the cultivation of the soil, cause a more rapid flowing away of the water which falls upon the surface. Formerly the reservoir received more water from the gradual draining of the surface; this maintained it at a good stage for a longer time, and enabled it to furnish a greater sup- ply during those months of the dry season when water is usually low in the canal. If the capacity of the reservoir could be increased so as to hold more of the water which falls in the winter months, its usefulness might be greatly increased, for instead of being maintained in good stage until late in the summer by the gradual running out of the water from the exten- sive swamps of an early day, it is now filled up by the rapid surface drain- age, and to furnish as much water when most wanted, must have a capacity to hold at once all that comes into it in the winter and spring. In 2,000 acres of land there are 87.120,000 square feet. If it is filled, during the year, with eight feet in depth of water, there would be 696,960,000 cubic feet ; allowing that one-half is lost by evaporation, soakage, and waste from imperfect bulkheads, there would remain 348,480,000 cubic feet for the uses of the canal-enough to lock down, with the present size of locks, 80 boats from the summit level every day of the year. With 65 square miles of drain- age, from which the reservoir must receive its supply, how much of the forty inches annual rain-fall would be necessary to furnish this amount? Less than five inches. A much larger proportion of the 40 inches than this certainly flows from the surface of the ground.
It is but justice to the people of the county to call attention to some facts connected with the history and present condition of Loramie reservoir. As it is, the people of the county do not feel kindly disposed toward it. The ground covered by the water of this reservoir was covered in part by the original forest when it was constructed. The forest was not removed, but the trees surrounded by water died, and in the course of time fell down, and now lie in great numbers beneath the water when the water is high, and partly out of it when the water is low. This exposure of the timber to the air in the late summer and the autumn months causes, it is believed, the generation of a miasm which pervades the whole region, rendering it unhealthy. The exposure of the logs to the atmosphere, it is believed, also, has been the cause of the destruction of many tons of fine fish during the past two seasons. It seems, and who will not say with justice, to the peo- ple of the county, that the state should do something to remedy the evils which they suffer from the causes just mentioned. They think that the reservoir should be an attractive rather than a repulsive body of water, that it should be a benefit rather than an injury to the interests of the county. Now, when it is borne in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of logs and other sediment in the reservoir, and that all dis- places as many cubic feet of water, it is after all a question worthy to be considered, whether it would not be economy to remove all this rubbish to have its room occupied by water every year. How many hundred, perhaps thousand, times would the water-soaked forest which lies beneath the reser- 4
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voir, with the other vast accumulations of vegetable matter and mud, fill one of the locks of the canal? This would be the measure of gain each year resulting from the removal of all this material from the reservoir-for every lock-full of logs a lock-full of water would be gained. This would remove a nuisance from the county, and in some degree compensate for the withdrawal of so large an arca of land from cultivation, from improvement, from tax paying. The importance of the reservoirs of the state as sources of supply of fish, deserves to be mentioned here ; not only the actual amount of fish for the table to be procured from them, but as sources from which the waters of the state may be restocked and kept supplied with young fish. The reservoirs are at the head-waters of our principal rivers, and, with the present knowledge of artificial fish-breeding, could be made of immense value to the state as sources of supply of fish for the rivers of the state.
The amount of water which could be made available for the canal depends upon the area of land which is above the level of the canal. All that part of the county, embracing about nine townships, which lies on the east and northeast of the main canal, and west and northwest of the Sidney feeder. is above the highest "level" of the canal-it will average about 75 feet above the canal. Of course it would be possible to gather many times more water from this area than could be contained in Loramie reservoir. While all this area could not be made available, yet there must be much of it which could be, were it considered a matter of sufficient importance to have it done. Considering, then. alone, the great area, both in this county and in the counties above this, about the head-waters of the Miami river, there should be no question as to the abundance of the supply of water above the summit- level of the canal to continue it as one of the most important avennes of commerce of the state.
The Drift-The level of the canal at Sidney is about 30 feet above the rock surface. Add to this distance the ascertained elevation above the canal of any point in the county, and it will give approximately the thickness of the drift or clay, gravel, and bowlder deposits. This would make the greatest thickness of the drift on the Tawawa turnpike 164 feet above bedded rock. Within about two miles of Sidney, on the turnpike to St. Marys, the elevation measures 112 feet above the canal at Sidney. Add to this 30 feet and we have 142, which may be very confidently considered the depth of the drift at this place. It is true these figures may not be the exact measure of the distance from the surface down to the solid rock. Other formations which are known to occur north of this county, and which over- lie the formation which occurs here. may underlie the deep drift of the northern part of this county, but this not not certainly known to be the case. On the south, at the line between this and Miami county, on the Infirmary turnpike, the grade falls 40 feet below the level of the canal, which is ten feet lower than the top of the rock near Sidney. By the course of the river it will be seen that there is a dip on the surface of the rock as we go southward. The canal rises 152 feet from Tippecanoe (below Lock
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39) to the feeder at Sidney. While accurate measurements were not taken of the difference in elevation of the top of the Clinton stone in the neighbor- hood of Tippecanoe, and the surface of the canal. yet some measurements which I recorded make the distance about 60 feet. Taking this from 152 makes this formation about 92 feet at Tippecanoe below the level of the Sidney feeder; whereas the top of the Clinton, where this formation is last seen above Bogg's mill-seat. near the end of the bridge over the river, as before stated, is near 60 feet below the canal, these figures would give to the Clinton a rise in level with the horizon of about 30 feet in that distance.
The surface of bedded rock underlying the drift in Shelby county is doubtless worn unevenly. in some places rising above the level indicated by the top rock, on the Miami, below Sidney, in others sinking more or less below that level-perhaps, in places, greatly below.
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