Part I. Report of progress in 1869, by J. S. Newberry, chief geologist. Part II. Report of progress in the second district, by E. B. Andrews, assist. geologist. Part III. Report on geology of Montgomery County, by Edward Orton, assist. geologist.

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strata containing the workable seams of coal. In many parts of our
country this is precisely the structure of the Carboniferous series, but in
Ohio the Lower Carboniferous rocks consist mostly of mechanical sediments-sandstone, shale, &c.-and the Mountain Limestone is almost
entirely wanting.
The lowest member which we possess of the Carboniferous group is
that well known to most persons under the name of the " Waverly sandstone," a name derived from the town of Waverly, in Pike county, where
famous quarries are located upon it. By referring to the map, it will be
seen that the south-eastern third of the State is colored of a uniform
dark brown tint. This represents the Coal Measures. Parallel with the
margin of this dark area is a narrow belt of red, which represents the
Carboniferous Conglomerate. Outside of this a still broader belt of
yellow occupies the position of the outcrop of the Waverly group-that
which we are now considering. In southern Ohio this formation, according to Prof. Andrews, is 640 feet in thickness, composed mostly of sandy
shales and ochery sandstone. Aside from the band of building stone to
which I have referred, called the City Ledge, some five feet in thickness,
and a stratum of highly bituminous shale just below it, sixteen feet thick
(distilled for oil, and rich in interesting fossils), the group here possesses
few elements of economic value. In the northern part of the State,
however, it is much less homogeneous, and is composed of the following
elements:
Feet.
Cuyahoga Shale (dove-colored shale and fine blue sandstone)......... 150
Berea Grit (drab sandstone)............................. -50
Bedford Shale (red and blue clay shale)............................ 60
Cleveland Shale (black bituminous shale). —.................... 20-60
Of these the Berea Grit is one of the most valuable elements in our
geological series, inasmuch as, quarried at Amherst, Berea, Independence, &c., it is a source from which we derive, in the form of grindstones,
building stone, &c., at least a million of dollars annually. The value of
this stone for the purposes I have enumerated is too well known to require amplification. It is not only largely employed within our State,
but exported both east and west, and is being used for the most beautiful
and expensive public and private buildings in all our great cities.
This Waverly group is a vast storehouse of fossils, many of which,
especially the fishes, are of great interest. These have been collected in
considerable numbers during the past season, and the study given to
them has enabled me to decide the long-mooted question of the age of
the formation containing them. By most geologists this has been considered as a portion of,the Devonian formation, and the equivalent of
the Chemung and Portage of New York; but, as I have shown, these
groups are represented by the Erie and Huron shales, which underlie the