USA > Ohio > Auglaize County > History of western Ohio and Auglaize County, with illustrations and biographical sketches of pioneers and prominent public men > Part 31
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In the course of time the Scioto channel filled to such an extent that icebergs stranded on the submarine ridges and mounds, where they melted away, depositing their clay, sand, gravel and boulders around their circumferences.
The numerous circular, bowl shaped ponds on the summits of ridges and mounds in different sections of the county, mark the localities of stranded icebergs. They constitute one of the most noticeable features of the eastern portion of the county, and vary in depth from ten to sixty feet. The deeper ones are filled with water the year around. A number of them of late years have been converted into fish ponds. A second surprising feature is the large number of boulders located on the summits of the highest ridges in the county. These boulders vary much in composition. Specimens of gray granite, diorite, trachite and carbonate of lime are most common. In a ridge near ·Freyburg
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in Pusheta township, boulders of bituminous coal are found. Specimens of quartz boulders containing copper and iron are common in certain localities.
GRAVEL RIDGES.
The gravel ridges of the county yield an abundance of mate- rial for road making. Over three hundred and sixty miles of graveled pike have been constructed since 1880.
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Fig 1
Fig 3.
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THE NEWBURGH MASTODON ..
Mixed with the gravel, fossils, representing many geological periods are found. Of trilobites, the following have been found : Phacops Bufo, Dalmanities Ohioensis, Calymene Senaria, Cono- cardium Trigonale, and Asaphus Gigas. The gravel in the bed of Pusheta creek is stored with many varieties of these inter- esting crustaceans.
. As stated on a preceding page of this chapter, the fossil remains of the mastodon have been found in nine localities in the county.
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The first skeleton was discovered in the fall of 1870 in Clay township, two and a half miles east of the village of St. Johns, by some laborers engaged in excavating a ditch through Muchinippe swamp. The depth of the swamp at the point at which the discovery was made, is about eight feet, of which the upper third is of peat, and the remainder of marl. The bones were found in a posture natural to a quadruped when sinking in the mire. The head and tusks were thrown upward and the right forefoot thrown forward, as in the act of walking.
The writer visited the locality two days after the discovery, and before the removal of the bones of the lower extremities from the ground. A careful examination was made of the posi- tion of the animal, and measurements taken of the length of the body, neck, head, and circumference of the tusks. The accompanying engraving represents the entire skeleton of the mastodon discovered in 1845, in a marsh near Newburgh, New York, and now in possession of Dr. J. C. Warren of Boston. The parts lettered in the engraving represent the parts of the Clay township mastodon, and now in the writer's possession. The body as it lay in the ground was seventeen and one-half feet long, from where the tusks entered the skull to the base of the tail; and the head, as near as could be ascertained, was between .four and five feet long.
"Dr. Warren's specimen is eleven feet high, and seventeen feet long to the base of the tail. The length of the tusks is twelve feet, of which two and one-half feet are inserted in the sockets. The estimated height of the animal, when living, was between twelve and thirteen feet, and the whole length, adding seven feet for the horizontal projection of the tusks, from twenty- four to twenty-five feet."
A comparison of the length of the Clay township masto- don with the Newburgh specimen shows the former to be the larger of the two. It was probably a foot higher, and from one to two feet longer.
The tusks and most of the vertebrae, ribs, and pelvis, were decayed so much that they crumbled to pieces upon exposure to the air. The following are the portions of the skeleton found :
Lower Jaw (t) .- The anterior portion of the lower jaw has the form of a V, and is about eighteen inches long, terminat- ing anteriorly in a horn five inches in length.
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Tusks .- The circumference of one of the tusks at the point where it entered the cranium was twenty-two inches - their length was not ascertained.
Mastodon No. 12. - Part of the bones of another mastodon was found in section four, Clay township, in December, 1874, by some men engaged in digging a ditch. The ravine in which the animal was found partakes somewhat of the character of the swamp. The depth of the superficial deposit at the point at which the remains were found is about six feet. The upper third is black muck, and the remainder shell marl.
The marl thrown out of this ditch, after a few months' exposure to the air, becomes so white as to form a strong con- trast with the inky surface soil. The following are the portions of the skeleton found :
Tusks .- Two tusks twenty-eight inches in circumference at the base, and twelve feet long.
Teeth .- Three teeth, two of them in a good state of pres- ervation.
Vertebra .- Six cervical (k), and two dorsal.
Extremities .- One each of the following bones : Humerus, femur, tibia, ulna, radius; two patellae, and three bones of the feet.
The bones of this specimen are much larger than the cor- responding bones of specimen No. I, and are probably those of an old animal, as the teeth are very much worn. The remains were purchased by the writer, and deposited in the museum of Heidelberg College of this State.
No. 3 .- A third mastodon was discovered by Mr. Samuel Craig in section nineteen of Washington township, in January, 1878, whilst engaged in surveying in that township. No care- ful search for the skeleton has yet been made. The boggy char- acter of the ground in which the animal is located leads us to believe that the remains will be found in a good state of preser- vation.
No. 4 .- The remains of a fourth mastodon was discovered about fifteen years ago in a ditch excavation, in section thirty- three in Duchouquet township. The remains were so badly decayed that they crumbled upon exposure to the air.
No. 5 .- About eighteen years ago, a mastodon was discov- ered in digging a ditch in Wayne township. The writer saw the
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terminal portion of one of the tusks a few years after it was found.
No. 6 .- In 1881 a mastodon was unearthed in digging a ditch in Union township. It, too, fell to pieces upon exposure to the air.
No. 7 .- A report of the discovery of a mastodon in Salem township has been reported to the writer. The particulars of the find have not been reported.
No. 8 .- In 1891 a mastodon was discovered by some labor- ers, engaged in deepening and widening the bed of a creek, extending through section twenty-two, in Duchouquet township. The tusks projected across the ditch, and were severed by the workmen, and carried to Logan county. No attempt has yet been made to recover the body of the animal.
No. 9 .- In 1894, a mastodon calf was discovered by J. Nuss, in section twenty-nine, Pusheta township, imbedded in a layer of muck at the bottom of a circular pond. For the first time in many years the pond became dry, when the owner decided to deepen it and convert it into a fish-pond. In remov- ing the humus the skeleton was uncovered. It was the most complete skeleton that has been found in this or adjoining coun- ties. It was about three feet in height and about four feet in length. Its tusks were about one foot in length. The discoverer of the specimen held it for two or three years, expecting to receive a high price for it. At the end of that time it was worth- less from its long exposure to the air.
"Of the recent existence of the mastodon, there seems to be no doubt, the marl-beds and muck swamps, in which the Auglaize county skeletons have been found are the most recent of all superficial accumulations.
"We have no evidence that the animal was clothed with hair save the discovery of a few dun-brown tufts, two to seven inches long, in conjunction with the Shawangunk skeleton found in a bog near Redbridge, New York.
"The great mastodon which roamed over North America is known as the American mastodon. It seems to have been the. dominant proboscidian of the New World. Evidence exists that the American mastodon continued in America to as late a date- as the primeval mammoth in Europe, and was, like that, con-
22 HAC
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temporary with the human species. Barton and Kalm both give accounts of discoveries in which some outline of the soft parts of the animal are still preserved. The Indians, moreover, retained very positive and vivid traditions of the mastodon, calling it "the bison's grandfather," and related that they had all been slain by the Great Man because they were destroying the Indians "game."
CASTOROIDES OHIOENSIS.
A head of this great Rodent, with the exception of the lower jaw, was found buried at the margin of a bog in section
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CASTOROIDES OHIOENSIS.
twenty-nine, Washington township, in 1889. An investigation disclosed a bed of humus, resting on a bed of gravel, of excel- lent quality for road-making. Soon after the discovery, the gravel-bed was purchased by the village council of New Knox- ville for graveling the streets of that corporation. In removing the carbonaceous deposit near the margin of the pond, on the south side, the habitation of the Rodent was uncovered. The house was about eight feet square, and between three and four feet in height. The poles of which the pen was constructed, were
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about three inches in diameter and were laid in the manner in which beaver houses are constructed at the present time. Within this house the great beaver died. After his death, his domicile was tenanted by wolves or other carnivorous animals, as was shown by the bones of deer and other animals strewn over the floor.
The body of the modern beaver is about three feet long, exclusive of the tail; whilst Castoroides Ohioensis was over five feet in length.
This animal surpassed in magnitude all the animals included in the order Rodentia. The length of the upper incisor from the tip of the base, around the outer curve, is eleven and a half inches. The distance between the extremities of the premaxilla and supraoccipital bones is thirteen inches. The orbital cavities are four and a half inches in length by two and a half inches in width. The two maxila bones are five inches long, and the right and left divisions of the frontal bone are each six inches long. The grinders, four in number on each side, are obliquely traversed by six ridges or folds of enamel.
From the details given above, it would seem that Castor- oides Ohioensis was closely allied to the beaver, but far sur- passing it in magnitude. "Its life was probably aquatic, and its food consisted of vegetable substances, which it gnawed off with its powerful incisors. The jaw was incapable of horizontal motion, except from back to front, and the transverse arrange- ment of the enamel is such as to have enabled the animal to gnaw the hardest ligneous substances. Viewed in this light, there is a mutual correspondence in the various organs, and an admirable adaptation to the offices which they were designed to discharge."
ROCK STRUCTURE UNDERLYING AUGLAIZE COUNTY.
The county rests upon what is known in geology as the Silurean Age. This age is generally regarded as the lowest sys- tem of fossiliferous rocks, and is named from that part of Eng- land and Wales which was inhabited by the ancient Silures, where this system is well exhibited, and where it was first care- fully studied.
Were we to descend deep enough below the surface we should reach the limit of the stratified deposits of this age. At
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this point the great foundations of the continent are reached. The thickness of this underlying floor is unknown. "The drill has never yet hewed its way down to this firm and massive bed within our boundaries."
The Silurean age consists of two great divisions, the Upper and the Lower, and each of these is divided into well-marked formations of rocks, as seen by the following tables :
UPPER SILUREAN.
Lower Helderberg. Niagara Series. Clinton Series. Medina Shales.
Hudson River Series.
LOWER SILUREAN.
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Utica Shales. Trenton Limestone. Potsdam.
1. POTSDAM PERIOD.
This period is supposed to underlie the Trenton limestone, but has not yet been reached by oil drills.
2. THE TRENTON PERIOD.
The Trenton limestone is one of the most important of the older formations of the continent. It extends from New Eng- land to the Rocky Mountains, and from the islands north of Hudson's Bay to the southern extremity of the Allegheny Moun- tains in Alabama and Georgia.
The depth of this period, below the drift surface, is generally from one thousand to fifteen hundreed feet.
The seas of the Trenton period were densely populated with animal life. Many of the beds are made of the shells, corals, and crinoids, packed down in bulk. The writer has seen many fossils characteristic of the period, that have been lifted to the surface by the sand-pump. We shall have occasion to again refer to the immense animal deposits of this period.
An analysis of fragments of Trenton stone thrown from a well near Cridersville yielded the following results:
Carbonate of lime. 92.88
Carbonate of magnesia. 3.90
Insoluble matter 3.22
Total 100.00
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3. UTICA SHALE.
The immediate cover of the Trenton limestone is a well- known stratum of black shale three hundred feet in thickness, which, from its abundant outcrops in the vicinity of Utica, New York, received from the geologists the name of Utica 'shale.
The rock is a crumbling shale, mostly of a dark blue-black or brownish-black color, and frequently bituminous or carbona- ceous, - so much so, in certain places, as to serve as a black pigment. It sometimes contains tlfin coaly seams; and much money has been foolishly spent in searching for coal in this deposit. .
This stratum is sparingly fossiliferous, but several of the forms it contains have been identified by Prof. Orton.
4. HUDSON RIVER SERIES.
This series is so named from the Hudson River, along which there are outcrops of it. The formation in Auglaize county consists of a soft blue shale, becoming darker as it approaches the Utica shale. In the southern part of the state it becomes a hard blue limestone. The thickness of the formation varies from five hundred to six hundred feet in different localities in the county.
This period is of special interest to paleontologists, from the great variety of fossils which it contains.
5. MEDINA GROUP.
This group is named from the locality in western New York where the rock is extensively quarried for building pur- poses. In that locality it is a thickly laminated sandstone, of red, gray, and beautifully mottled colors. In Auglaize county the group is represented by a strata of red shale or red clay from two to ten feet in thickness. It is represented in the northern part of Duchouquet township.
6. CLINTON GROUP.
This group is so called from a village in central New York, where it is a shaly sandstone. It is a highly crystalline lime- stone in Ohio, and is susceptible of a good polish. In some localities it is known as a marble. In its most characteristic forms it varies in composition from eighty-four per cent. to
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ninety-three per cent. of carbonate of lime. The carbonate of magnesia never exceeds, and seldom reaches, twelve per cent. The group varies in thickness, from fifty to one hundred feet in Auglaize county.
7. NIAGARA GROUP.
This formation, called the Niagara limestone, is so named from the Niagara River, whose channel is cut deep in the rocks of the period, forming its celebrated gorges below Niagara Falls. The rock varies from two to three hundred feet in thickness in different localities in the county.
The Niagara limestone is known to underlie the drift of the townships of Wayne, Goshen, Clay, Pusheta, Washington, Jack- son, German and St. Mary's.
A chemical analysis of the Niagara stone at Sidney, the nearest outcrop to Auglaize county, shows the following com- position :
Carbonate of lime. 55.00
Carbonate of magnesia. 42.92
Alumina and oxide of iron. 1.60
Silicious matter
trace
Total 99.52
The Niagara series is exceedingly rich in fossils, containing a large number that are characteristic of the formation. Where- ever the rock surface is covered by drift in southwestern Ohio, it has been planed and striated by glacial action. Large quan- tities of striated Dayton stone are shipped to this county and used for building purposes.
8. LOWER HELDERBERG.
The exposures of the Lower Helderberg rocks (called Water Lime group by the State geologists) is thin bedded, of a dark blue color, and contains a large percentage of organic matter. Specimens have been received by the writer, containing as high as thirty per cent. of asphaltum. The stone is not well adapted to lime-burning, and shales too much, when exposed to the air, to be of much value as a building-stone. The fossils common to the Lower Helderberg are not abundant in the outcrops. Lepperditia alta and Pentamerous galeatus are the only charac- teristic fossils found.
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PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS.
The discoveries of gas and petroleum in the Findlay and Lima territories aroused as great an interest and inquiry as that that followed the discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania. The interest, up to the present, has been so great and so wide-spread that discoveries of gas and oil, in widely separated localities, have followed in rapid succession. Every township in Auglaize county has been tested by the drilling of one or more deep wells.
Rock-oil is no new thing under the sun. More than two hundred years ago it was known in Italy and used to light the houses of Parma and Modena. Taken from the wells of Ran- goon, it was used as a medicine in Burmah more than two thou- sand years ago. "The eternal fire of Bakou" burned in the days of Zoroaster, and excited such wonder among the people that they became fire-worshipers.
The existence of petroleum and natural gas were known long before the first well was drilled in Pennsylvania. The Indians sold Seneca oil to the New England and Pennsylvania pioneers, as a sure cure for rheumatism. At Watertown, New York, petroleum trickled from the pores of coral in the Trenton lime- stone. In the same stone, cropping out in Canada, it was found filling the chambers of the orthocerata. On the shores of Lake Erie it was also found, filling the pores of Trenton coral.
The petroleum springs of Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, attracted attention at an early date. Mention was made of them in letters and reports directed to the old world more than a hundred years ago.
Natural gas and petroleum belong to a line of products in the earth to which we give the name of bitumens. Other bodies in the same list are the extremely volatile naphtha, and the semi- fluid maltha, or mineral tar, and solid asphalt. Other gradations are also recognized as mineral pitch and ozokorite. These sub- stances are found under the same general conditons, and all the steps of the transformation of one to the other, as from petroleum to asphalt, are often noted. They are all technically known as hydro-carbons, and belong to the methane series. Their general composition consists of carbon eighty-five per cent., and hydro- gen about thirteen per cent. Small variable amounts of oxygen and nitrogen are also found. When the gas or oil is impregnated
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with sulphur in the form of sulphuretted hydrogen, it gives to them an offensive odor which must be removed in the case of oil before it can be utilized. Asphaltum has been found mixed with petroleum in variable quantities wherever found, except in a few of the shale oils.
THEORIES CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM.
Numerous theories, chemical and geological, have been advanced within the last eighty years to account for the origin of petroleum. We shall limit ourself to a notice of four of the principal ones.
(a) Berthelot published in 1866 a theory, which, in his view, was adequate to account for all natural hydro-carbons by the action of chemical force on inorganic matter. That super- heated steam along with superheated carbonic acid, acting upon the alkali metals, would produce in oil. Repeated experiments made since the publication of his theory show that oil may be produced in that manner.
This theory, however, has been criticized on the postulate that the alkali metals exist in an uncombined state in the interior of the earth. In any case, it is unverifiable, and can only rank as a hypothesis.
(b) The second chemical theory is the one advanced by Dr. Mendeljeff. "He assumes that the crust of the earth is very thin in comparison with the diameter of the latter, and that this crust encloses soft or fluid substances, among which the carbides of iron and other metals find a place. When, in consequence of cooling or some other cause, a fissure takes place through which a mountain-range is produced, the crust of the earth is bent, and at the foot of the hills fissures are formed ; or, at any rate, the continuity of the rocky layers is disturbed, and they are rendered more or less porous, so that surface waters are able to make their way deep into the bowels of the earth, and to reach occasionally the heated deposits of metallic carbides, which may exist either in a separated condition, or blended with other mat- ter. Under such circumstances, it is easy to see what must take place. Iron, or whatever other metal may be present, forms an oxide with the oxygen of the water. Hydrogen is either set free or combines with the carbon which was associated with the
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metal, and becomes a volatile substance, that is, naphtha. The water which had penetrated down to the incandescent mass was changed into steam, a portion of which found its way to the porous substances with which the fissures were filled, and carried with it the vapors of the newly formed hydro-carbons; and this mixture of vapors was condensed wholly or in part as soon as it reached the cooler strata. The chemical composition of the hydro-carbon produced will depend upon the conditons of tem- perature and pressure under which they are formed. It is obvious that these may vary between very wide limits ; and hence it is that mineral oils, mineral pitch, ozokorite, and similar pro- ducts differ so greatly from each other in the relative proportions of hydrogen and carbon. I may mention that artificial petroleum has been frequently prepared by a process analogous to that described above."
Prof. Orton, in his comments on the theory of Dr. Mendel- jeff, remarks that his speculations with regard to the production of gas and oil "are wide of the mark, so far, at least, as they relate to the production of these substances in Ohio."
Dr. Newberry's Theory. One of the most lucid and widely accepted theories as to the origin of petroleum and gas is that of Dr. J. S. Newberry, formerly State Geologist of Ohio. In Vol. I, Geology of Ohio, he says :
(a) "I have already referred to the Huron shale as a probable source of the greater part of the petroleum obtained in this country. The considerations which have led me to adopt this view are briefly these :
"First. We have in the Huron shale a vast repository of solid hydro-carbonaceous matter which may be made to yield ten to twenty gallons of oil to the ton by artificial distillation. Like all other organic matter, this is constantly undergoing spon- taneous distillation, except where hermetically sealed deep under rock and water. This results in the formation of oil and gas, ·closely resembling those which we make artificially from the same substance, the manufactured differing from the natural products only because we can not imitate accurately the process of nature.
"Second. A line of oil and gas springs marks the outcrop of the Huron shale from New York to Tennessee. The rock itself
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is frequently found saturated with petroleum, and the overlying strata, if porous, are sure to be more or less impregnated with it.
"Third. The wells of Oil Creek penetrate the strata imme- diately overlying the Huron shale, and the oil is obtained from: the fissured and porous sheets of sandstone of the Portage and Chemung groups, which lie just above the Huron, and offer convenient reservoirs for the oil it furnishes."
There are several methods in which vegetable and animal substances can be resolved into compounds of a simpler order than those that are formed in the living world. One of these- methods is known as decay. When the vital force is withdrawn from the organic substance, chemical affinity asserts itself and a rearrangement of the elements composing the bodies is effected. Destructive distillation is at the present time a process of immense- practical value. The temperature, however, at which it can be: effected is never less than 180 F.
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