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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completely eroded into a vast and wonderful system of ramifying valleys. The hills and ridges are simply the remnants of what were once
continuous rock strata. In many sections, the ever-toiling water, in
rain drops, and streamlets and rivers, has sculptured the, hills in rounded
and graceful forms, while in others, the streams have cut for themselves
channels with almost perpendicular sides, giving to the scenery a bold
mural character. The latter characteristics are more often seen where
the streams flow over the heavy sand-rock strata. Between Lancaster
and Logan, the Hocking river flows in a valley, bordered by high cliffs.
Some of the tributaries have eroded channels so deep and narrow that
they may be properly termed canons. The Licking river has excavated
a similar channel in the vicinity of Black Hand. In many places we
find a cliff on one side, and rounded hills on the other. This is well seen
on the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad, in the vicinity of the Cincinnati
Furnace, in Vinton county.
In many sections we find the bills beautifully terraced. This is due to
the different degrees of hardness in the strata. Shales are more easily
disintegraded and removed than harder rocks, and the latter consequently show a more perpendicular front. Sometimes a highly soluble
limestone dissolves away, leaving harder rocks in bolder front above.
These terraces are often of great assistance to the geologist in enabling
him to see at a glance the range of certain strata along the sides of
distant hills.
DRIFT.
After the valleys were eroded as they now exist, many of them were
filled with what is geologically termed "drift" materials, which are
chiefly waterworn pebbles and bowlders, sand, and sometimes clays. The
principal outspread of the drift is in the northwestern part of the district, in the Scioto Valley, and near the sources of the Hocking and
Licking Rivers. In this region, the surface of the earth is almost wholly
covered with superficial deposits brought from the north. Some of the
materials are not found in place within the State, but come from beyond
the lakes. Limestone bowlders and gravel show, from their contained
fossils and lithological character, that they originally came from the
Corniferous limestone, a formation well developed in the northern part of
the State. All the streams which have their sources within the great
drift region of the central and northern portion of the State, have carried
down more or less of the drift materials, and deposited them in vast
sandbars and sandy flats. These now constitute the well known terraces
of the Scioto, Hocking and Muskingum rivers. The Ohio river is also
bordered by these terraces, the materials having been largely brought to
it by its northern affluents. The tributaries to the Ohio from the south,
as the Little and Great Kanawhas, have no such terraces. The same is