History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 89

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

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The main gravel, sand and fine clay deposits of the district come, however, under another head. All of these were accumulated under water. They bear the unmistakable proofs of such an origin in the sorting of the materials that compose them and in their stratification. The materials themselves were derived from the boulder clay, but the peculiar features of this deposit were mainly obliterated by the action of water, to which the materials were here subjected. The polishing of the rock fragments and pebbles was largely made to disappear, and the peculiar shape produced by running water and the wave action was given to these materials instead. The deposits of the group were obviously formed at a later date than the boulder clay. The deposits of the stratified drift are exceedingly varied in thick- ness. There may be but a foot or two of these beds overlying a heavy deposit of the boulder clay, or they may constitute the entire section for twentyfive, fifty, or in extreme cases, one hundred feet.

The gravel and small boulders which the stratified drift contains have been of great service to the city and vicinity in the making of streets and roadways. In the last few years we have been able to use better materials, but in the first half century of its growth Columbus was entirely dependent on these materials for this important line of service. The country roads are still limited to the gravel banks in the improvements that they undertake. The sand of the formation is applied to all ordinary uses and it may be counted among the valuable resources of the city. These stratified deposits are not confined to the river valleys. They are found at the greatest altitudes of Central Ohio as well. For example, the highest land crossed by the Little Miami Railway between Columbus and Cincinnati lies three miles west of London, but this summit is occupied by a fine example of stratified drift in the shape of a gravel bank of large extent.

The boulder clay requires for its explanation a most unfamiliar agent and exceedingly abnormal climatic condition, conditions which it overtaxes the imagina-

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tion to restore. We cannot stop in the process until we have buried all central and western Ohio under a Greenland glacier, several thousand feet in thickness, and moving with irresistible torce over the entire region now occupied by the boulder clay. A strain almost as great is put upon us in finding an adequate explanation of the stratified drift. The sands and gravel of this series were all . laid down in shallow water. To account for them it is necessary to cover all central and southern Ohio with a freshwater lake or series of lakes. This result can be accomplished only by a depression of the continent on a large scale. By such a depression the flow of the rivers would be arrested and the water resulting from the melting of the great body of ice accumulated in the earlier stages of the glacial period, would flood the entire region covered by the glacier. It has been suggested that the accumulations of snow and ice in the northern hemisphere temporarily changed the centre of gravity of the earth, thus bringing the ocean to a higher level upon the northern lands. Certain it is that the districts named were submerged during this part of the history. The amount of work done by the water in this portion of the glacial period can be partially measured in the enormous accumulations of rounded and wellworn gravel that occupy the valley's and tablelands of the State. The gravels of the Scioto Valley furnish a good illus- tration of this line of facts If measured at all, the unit would need to be a cubic mile. Under any smaller standard of measure, the figures would pass the limit of intelligibility.

Explanations of the Drift. - While all geologists are agreed as to the general line of events that has been briefly sketched in the preceding pages, viz : 1. The burial of a large part of the country under a continental glacier for a long period of time and with many mutations in the history ; and, 2, a subsequent depression of the land under a freshwater lake or series of lakes; they do not agree in their views as to the causes that brought about these surprising conditions. The sub- ject has attracted a great deal of attention during the last fifty, and especially during the last twentyfive years, and a large measure of ability and learning have been expended upon the problems involved. But these problems proved to be large and complicated ones and several sciences must be consulted in their final settlement. It must be confessed that, at the present time, no complete and satis- factory theory as to the cause of the glacial period can be presented. Several more or less plausible theories have been advanced within the last half century, but none of them has been able to bear the criticism to which every theory in science is necessarily subjected before it can be counted established.

The most prominent of all these attempts to explain the anomalous conditions of the glacial period is undoubtedly that of the late Doctor James Croll, of the Geological Survey of Scotland. He differed from most that had preceded him in this field by assigning an astronomical cause for the astonishing reduction of tem- perature which the glacial period demands. In the indirect results of the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, be found sufficient cause for the changes that we are called on to explain. The direct effect of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit had been urged before his time as an adequate explanation, but upon due examina tion at the hands of the astronomers had been rejected as inadequate. Croll's

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work opened up an entirely new line of inquiry, and one which at first seemed cer- tain to lead to the solution of this great problem of geology. But within the last ten years the arguments against it have gathered strength, and the prevailing feel- ing at the present time among those best qualified to form an opinion is that the theory is, if not inadmissible, at least not established. The principal objections to it come from the amount of time which it involves. By astronomical calculation it is found that the last period of high eccentricity began about 240,000 years ago and ended about 80,000 years ago. But as much as the geologist values past time, and exorbitant as are his demands upon it in the popular estimation, it is still pos- sible to give him, in particular stages ot the history, more than he knows what to do with. The geological effects that have been bronght about since the close of the ice age do not require and cannot account for as long a period as 80,000 years. The work of rivers in excavating new channels for themselves in cases where old valleys had been choked with glacial drift gives us a sort of chronometer that we can apply. According to our best light these new valleys, like those of the Niagara River in the gorge below the falls, and the valley of the Mississippi below the Falls of St. Anthony, cannot have required or used more than ten to fifteen thousand years in their work. There are many other facts that are in harmony with these conclusions, and inasmuch as Croll's theory seems to necessarily involve the longer period, most of the geologists who were leaning to this explanation, have found themselves obliged on this account to renounce the theory. There are also some weighty criticisms directed against it from the astronomical and physical side.

It is a great disappointment to be obliged to abandon so promising a clue to the interpretation of this anomalous and complicated history as Doctor Croll offered to the scientific world, the more especially since there is no other theory of equal scope and promise to be presented in place of it. But this entire experience is illustrative of the spirit of modern science. Every explanation of natural phenomena that is offered to the world is subjected to the most rigorous and unsparing tests, with- ont fear or favor. The love of the truth is the dominant spirit of science, and urgent as the demand of our rational faculties is for an explanation of facts which interest us, if the explanation fails to harmonize the facts in any important respects we dismiss it, confess our ignorance and wait and work patiently for larger knowledge and clearer light. Some such attitude as this is maintained by most geologists at the present time in regard to the glacial period. The older theories, involving changes in the distribution of land and sea, and changes in the altitude of the land masses, are still under consideration, and many still hope that some portion of Croll's brilliant exposition of a cosmical cause for the phenomena may yet be reconciled with the facts. But in default of a thoroughly comprehensive and defensible theory at the present, the study of the phenomena is being carried on with great energy and success. Out of this more extensive knowledge a better theory is sure sooner or later to spring. If a feeling of impatience rises at this confession of ignorance on the part of geology, it is well to remember how short a time it is since we first learned to know that there had been in the world's recent history such a thing as a glacial period. It is not more than fifty years since the first statements as to a

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great ice age began to obtain curreney. The more formal enunciation of the facts by Professor Louis Agassiz in 1846 was received with widespread incredulity.

The glacial period has done everything for Columbus. It is practically the only important fact in its geology. The topography, soils, water supply and drain- age of the city are all dependent upon this great series of beds. The influence of the underlying rock is reduced to the lowest possible terms. It merely serves as a foundation of the drift which constitutes the actual surface.

These general descriptions cover the geology of Columbus so far as its most con- spicuous features are concerned. There remain to be considered the other topics named in the introduction of the chapter.

GEOGRAPHY.

Under this head the facts pertaining to the situation, topography and climate of Columbus will be given in brief.

Situation .- The latitude and longitude of Columbus have been determined by the United States Coast Survey. The observations were made in the Statehouse grounds, on the east side of the building, but the figures are referred to the centre of the dome. According to this supreme authority, the latitude of this point in Columbus is thirtynine degrees, fiftyseven minutes and forty seconds north. The longitude of the same point is eightytwo degrees, fiftynine minutes and forty seconds west (Greenwich) making a difference in time of five hours, thirtyone minutes and fiftyeight and seventenths seconds.

Topography .- Central Ohio consists of a slightly undulating plain from eight hundred to eleven hundred feet above sealevel. Across it the present drainage channels extend in shallow valleys. As these streams descend to the south- ward they rapidly cut their beds deeper and deeper until the summits of the socalled hills that bound them, but which are in reality fragments of the original plain, reach an elevation of four hundred or even five hundred feet above the valleys. Columbus is situated in the most important of these shallow troughs above described, in Central Ohio, viz., the Scioto Valley, but it also extends to the adjacent uplands in considerable portions of its area. Low water of the Scioto in the central portion of the city is approximately seven hundred feet above tide. The uplands of the northernmost portions of the city are not less than nine hundred feet above tide. For the following figures we are dependent on railway surveys. The different surveys do not, however, exactly agree. Most of the figures given here are derived from the reports of the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railway. The elevation of the foundation of the Union Station is seven hundred fortysix and fiftyfive hundredths feet above tide. (Bench mark on water- table near door, southwest corner). Another figure is seven hundred and forty- three and seventenths feet above tide. The elevation of the watertable of the Ohio State University building is above tide. The United States Signal Service Station, corner High and Broad streets, third floor, reports an elevation of eight hundred and five feet. The elevation of the city bench mark at the northeast corner of the Statehouse is seven hundred eighty and sixtythree hundredths feet above tide.

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The feeder of the canal below the lock has an altitude of seven hundred two and sixteen hundredths feet.

In referring Columbus to the Seioto Valley this term is used in a general and comprehensive sense. In addition to the furrow occupied by the Scioto proper, parts of two other important valleys are included here, viz., those of the Whet- stone River and of Alum Creek. The former of these is in reality a much more conspicuous feature of the country than its main valley. The Scioto has wrought out its bed for a number of miles above Columbus in the Devonian limestone. It therefore has rock bottom and rock walls, though the latter are of but small height, and it has also very limited intervals. These facts demonstrate that this portion of the valley is of recent origin. The Scioto undoubtedly has an older channel buried somewhere along or adjacent to its present course and deeper than the present valley by at least one hundred feet. This channel was filled with the stubborn boulder clay of the drift, and when, at the close of the glacial period, the river resumed its operations, it found it easier to cut a new channel out of solid rock than to reexcavate the old one. This older valley very likely lay to the east- ward, as will be shown in the succeeding paragraph.

The Whetstone River, on the other hand, lying to the eastward of the Scioto, has wrought its valley out of the shale. It is also still flowing within its pre- glacial course, unless indeed, it has taken possession of the old valley of the Scioto above referred to. It nowhere has a rocky floor, but the beds of drift that under- lie it are not less than one hundred feet deep, as has been proved by repeated tests in wells that have been drilled here. It is bounded by abrupt walls on the east side of the old valley, small portions of which still appear as surface exposures in the gorges of North Columbus. The foundations of the Northwood school build- ing are laid in the bedded shale, and other portions of the formation rise twenty or more feet higher in the immediate vicinity, but at the rear end of the lot, a pipe was driven to a depth of ninety feet before striking the shale. This shows the presence of a fairly precipitous wall of shale at least a hundred feet in height on the eastern margin of the old valley, but the drift deposits have masked and concealed, for a great part of the district, all these striking features, and have given us gentle slopes of limestone gravel in the place of barren cliffs of shale. The breadth as well as the depth of the Whetstone Valley attests its antiquity. A beautiful scope of fertile bottom land, not less than a half mile in breadth, constitutes the intervales of the present river, while to the westward the rather indefinite boundary of the valley is composed of drift beds that occupy to a great depth the deeply eroded channels of the old rivers.

Alum Creek also occupies an old valley, as is proved by a series of facts sim- ilar to those already given. We thus see that these easily eroded shales have been removed from Columbus and the region sonth of it on a very large scale, and into the space from which they have been carried away a vast load of glacial drift has been deposited. The substitution, as already remarked in another connection, has been of priceless service to the district in every way. The most barren soil of Ohio, viz., that derived from the shale series, is the one that is geologically due here. In place of it, the weathered limestone gravel yields a soil that is the very

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type and standard of excellence. The forest growth that the shale would have supported is decidedly inferior in character, but in place of it we find the oak, wal- nut, hickory and other of our most valued timber trees. The natural water supply of the shale is of the most unsatisfactory sort in both quantity and quality, but these same drift deposits constitute a universal and inexhaustible reservoir from which we can draw all needed supplies for all time.

The Scioto River within and below the city limits occupies its old or preglac- ial valley, as is made evident by the geographical features of the latter and espec- ially by its breadth and depth. But the present channel is elevated by at least one hundred feet above the rock floor which constituted its original bed.

In summing up the general statements as to the topography of Columbus it is sufficient to say that the city occupies a slightly rolling drift plain about eight hun- dred feet above tide, within which the several drainage streams have cut broad and shallow valleys. The valleys are not more than fifty to seventyfive feet below the general level of the plane, but they are so situated with respect to the latter as to dispose quite promptly of even the heaviest rainfalls. The drainage of a few hundred acres in the eastern central portion of the city, forming the divide be- tween the Scioto and Alum Creek, was originally sluggish and the tracts inclined to a swampy condition. The surface consists of boulder clay, blackened by the abundant vegetable growth that has been incorporated with it. When provided with adequate drainage the tracts referred to are under no disadvantage whatever for occupation. They constitute, indeed, the best residence portion of the city at the present time. There is no considerable area of the city to which even the highest floods bring any threat of damage. Other facts pertaining to the topog- raphy will be incidentally noticed in connection with the topics to be considered in the succeeding section.

Climate .- A few words must be given to the climate of Columbus. There is little or nothing to distinguish it from the climate of the rest of Central Ohio. It has exactly the conditions to be expected from its altitude, its latitude and its gen- eral situation. Under the lastnamed heading the continental character of the cli- mate is included. It is marked by extremes. There is a difference of more than forty degrees between the average summer and the average winter temperatures, the latter being thirty degrees and the former seventythree degrees, Fahrenheit. The city is included between the isotherms of fiftyone and fiftytwo degrees, Fahrenheit. The annual range is not less than one hundred degrees, and the extremes not less than one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit. The summer heat sometimes shows one hundred degrees for the temperature of the air in the shade, while cold waves occasionally depress the mercury to thirty degrees below zero. Extreme changes are liable to occur in the course of a few hours, especially when the return trades are violently displaced by northwest winds. In such cases the temperature sometimes falls sixty degrees in twentyfour hours, while changes of twenty to thirty degrees in twentyfour hours are not unusual during the winter months.

The rainfall averages about forty inches and is excellently distributed, as follows, the figures designating inches: Spring, 10 to 12; Summer, 10 to 14;

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Autumn, 8 to 10; Winter, 7 to 10. The annual range is considerable, but a serious deficiency in the water supply of the region has never yet occurred. Columbus, like the rest of Central Ohio, and in fact like most portions of the State, is included within the tornado belt of the country, but thus far no destructive storin of this character has ever ravaged it. The depression of its surface below the country to the westward of it is two hundred to three hundred feet. Whether this fact bas any influence in giving it the exemption that it has hitherto enjoyed is not known, but the exemption may be gratefully recorded. When the path of one of these destructive storms shall happen to lie, as some day it will, over the site of a popul- ous city, the ruin it will work will rise to frightful proportions. Of the means of protection against such visitations we have absolutely no knowledge, and it does not seem probable that man will ever gain such knowledge.

SANITARY CONDITIONS OF COLUMBUS.

Closely connected with the geological and geographical features previously described are two subjects that have an intimate relation with the public health, viz., the water supply and the drainage of the city. These subjects will be con- sidered in the closing section of this chapter.

Sanitary science is an important application of modern knowledge to human wellbeing. It has taken shape only within the last forty years, but it has already rendered service of immense importance to the cities and towns that have accepted its guidance. It has lowered the annual death rate of such communities by five or ten to the thousand in some instances; it has reduced the burdens of sickness in at least an equal ratio. It has brought more or less complete exemption from inany discomforts and annoyances. It bids fair to become a powerful factor in the elevation and progress of the race.

It grew out of the discovery made in England about forty years ago that the germs of Asiatic cholera were in many instances distributed by means of drinking water. Attention was turned to several other diseases of similar character, and it soon became apparent that several of the most dreaded scourges of the race were largely propagated in a similar way, that is, through the agency of polluted drink- ing water and also by means of soils contaminated by the products of waste. But it was seen that the water supply of a community could not in any case be pro- tected from dangerous contamination unless provision should be made at the same time for the satisfactory disposal of the various forms of waste of the same com- munity. It is the recognition of this fact that has led the cities of the civilized world within the last forty years to enter on very large undertakings, necessitat- ing the expenditure of vast amounts of money, in securing for themselves a safe water supply and an effective system of sewerage. These questions have become by all odds the most urgent and important that these cities have been obliged to meet on the material side of life. The urgency of these questions arises in part from the unprecedented rate of growth which the cities of the entire civilized world have attained in the present century, and particularly during its latter half. During the same time, also, man has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowl-

GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY.

edge more freely than ever before, and his eyes have been opened to the dangers that surround him.

In our efforts to accomplish the twofold object which we have set before ourselves, many unfortunate and costly mistakes have been made and the remedy bas sometimes seemed worse than the evils to which it was applied. The chief defect has resulted from the system that has generally been adopted in the disposal of sewage. It has been the almost universal practice to conduct the sewage to the nearest stream and discharge it there without any attempt to correct or purify it. But it is from this same stream in most cases that the water supplies of adjacent cities must be derived. If there were but one city to a river the difficulty might not be serious. But, as the case now stands, each town in getting rid of its own sewage, endangers or pollutes the water supply of all the towns below it. The remedy for this state of things can be easily pointed out but it is costly to apply. It requires a larger measure of intelligence and fidelity in its execution than most of our cities have been able to command in their public work. It consists in destroying the dangerous character of the sewage before the water is returned to the general circulation of the region. The purification can be effected by chemical treatment or by infiltration through the soil. The soil has been proved to have a remarkable power in destroying the poisonous products of waste, and it is at once possible and practicable to thoroughly disinfect sewage by the treatment which is known as downward intermittent filtration, so that the effluent water can be returned to the streams without danger or offense. All this has been fully worked out in European cities and towns, and mainly in the cities of Great Britain. The cities of the United States have scarcely entered upon this line of action as yet, but its growing urgency will soon compel them to take up the problems involved.

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 89

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202