# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Ohio

See also Ohio on Wikipedia; Ohio in the 11th Edition; and the disclaimer.
Plate XXII. OHIO, the third of the States of the American Union in point of wealth and population, is situated between 38° 27′ and 41° 57′ N. lat. and between 80° 34′ and 84° 49′ W. long., and is bounded on the N. by Michigan and Lake Erie, on the E. by Pennsylvania, on the E. and S. by the Ohio river, which separates it from the States of West Virginia and Kentucky, and on the W. by Indiana. The greatest length from north to south is about 210 miles, the greatest breadth from east to west about 225 miles and the area 40,760 square miles.
Physical Features.—The surface consists of an undulating plain, generally ranging in elevation between 1550 and 430 feet above sea-level, the portions below 500 feet or above 1400 being comparatively insignificant. The largest connected areas of high land extend from east to west across the central and northern central districts. In some limited districts of central Ohio, especially along the ridge of high land just referred to, and also in a few thousand square miles of north-western Ohio, the natural drainage is somewhat sluggish, and, while the land is covered with its original forest growth, it inclines to swampy conditions; but when the forests are removed and the waterways opened most of it becomes arable, and all of it can be made so without excessive outlay by means of open ditches.
The chief feature in the topography of Ohio is the watershed, which extends across the State from north-east to south-west, and divides its surface into two unequal slopes, the northern, which is much the smaller, sending its waters into Lake Erie and the Gulf of St Lawrence, while the drainage of the other is to the Gulf of Mexico by the Ohio river. The average height of the ridge is about 1100 feet, but it is cut by several gaps, in which the elevation is reduced to about 950 feet. The relief of the State is chiefly due to erosive agencies. The entire drainage area of such a river as, for example, the Muskingum or the Scioto, may be conceived as originally a plain, all portions of which were at approximately the same elevation above the sea. Across this area one main furrow has been drawn, deepening and widening as it advances, and a countless number of narrower and shallower valleys are tributary to it. Fragments of the old plain still remain in the isolated “hills” or tablelands that bound the valleys, and which, though often separated by intervals of miles, still answer to each other with perfect correspondence of altitude and stratification. They rise to a maximum height of 600 feet above the river-channels in the main valleys.
Geological Map of Ohio.
Geology.—The rocky floor is entirely composed of unaltered stratified rocks of Palæozoic age. Not a single trap dyke or volcanic vent intersects them, and not a trace of igneous metamorphism is shown in any portion of their extent. These strata are disposed in plains so nearly horizontal that the dip is nowhere heavy enough to be safely determined by a clinometer. Not only are sharp flexures wanting, but faults deserving the name are found in but a single corner of a single county. A few low folds, one of which is of preponderating importance, traverse the State and redeem its surface from geological monotony. The only structural irregularity is an occasional case of overlap, but even this is seldom of such a character as to interfere with the easy reading of the record. The aggregate thickness of the entire series will reach 5000 feet if the maximum of each stratum is taken into the account, but if the average measurements are used the thickness does not exceed 3500 feet. The main elements of the scale,
which extends from the Lower Silurian (upper portion) to the Upper Coal-measures inclusive, are given below, and the geological sketch-map shows how the surface of the State is distributed among the principal formations.
| | Feet. |
| Glacial Drift | 0—300 |
| Upper barren measures | 300 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Carboniferous |
| Upper productive Coal-measures | 200 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Carboniferous |
| Lower barren measures | 500 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Carboniferous |
| Lower productive Coal-measures | | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Carboniferous |
| (including Conglomerate group of Penna) | 500 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Carboniferous |
| Maxville Limestone | 25 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Subcarboniferous |
| Waverly group | 500 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Subcarboniferous |
| Ohio Black Shale | | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Devonian |
| (including Cleveland, Erie, and Huron Shales) | 300 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Devonian |
| (Maximum 1500) | | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Devonian |
| Hamilton Shales | 25 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Devonian |
| Corniferous Limestone | 75 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Devonian |
| Lower Helderberg Limestone | 50 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Upper Silurian |
| Niagara Limestone | 150 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Upper Silurian |
| Niagara Shale | 50 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Upper Silurian |
| Clinton Limestone | 25 | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Upper Silurian |
| Cincinnati group | 800 | | Lower Silurian. |
The Cincinnati group, which constitutes the surface rock for about 4000 square miles in the south-western corner of the State, consists of alternating layers of blue limestone and calcareous shale, both of which contain great numbers of admirably-preserved fossils. The group is undoubtedly equivalent in part to the Hudson River group of the general scale, and by some geologists the name is counted a synonym, but it has not been proved that the Lower Silurian deposits of south-western Ohio can be definitely correlated with the subdivisions of the series in New York. The formation everywhere yields a cheap and excellent supply of building stone, which is also burned into a dark lime, valued for its hydraulic properties. The shales contain notable quantities of alkalis and phosphates, and the soils into which they very readily weather are proverbial for their fertility. The water-supply of the formation is poor, or rather wanting, the impervious shales refusing admission to the rainfall.
The Cincinnati axis, a low fold which traverses the State from south-west to north-east, constitutes its most influential geological feature. It entered Ohio from Kentucky at the close of Lower Silurian time, and gradually extended itself to the northward, until it had converted the western half of the State into dry land It has left a clear record of its successive stages in the strata which compose it. It did not advance steadily and equally, and the occasional relapses which it experienced have given rise to cases of overlap. It has a low, flat summit, and, on account of the soluble and easily-eroded materials of which it consists, it has suffered more from denuding agencies than the Upper Silurian strata that enclose
it, and consequently is now cut down to a lower level than they. In other words, the axis has been converted into a basin.
The Clinton Limestone generally rises in a terrace-like outcrop around the margin of the eroded Cincinnati beds, and its base is marked by the finest line of springs in the State. In its most characteristic phases it is a crystalline limestone that takes a good polish. In very many localities it yields small quantities of petroleum, which seems to be indigenous. The supply is too limited to be valuable.
The Niagara group, also of Upper Silurian age, is of much greater thickness and of proportionally greater economic and scientific importance than the Clinton limestone. As at the Falls, it here consists of a stratum of shale overlain by a massive limestone. It forms the surface rock for about 3000 square miles, but through much of this area it is concealed by heavy beds of Glacial Drift, by which its importance as a factor in the topography and the economic geology of the district is much reduced. In composition the limestone is almost a typical dolomite, but it is still fossiliferous, the fossils occurring as internal casts. It contains a large and interesting fauna. From near the base of the Niagara beds the “Dayton” stone, one of the most valuable building stones of the State, is derived. The formation yields excellent building stones at other horizons also, and its upper beds furnish lime.
The Lower Helderberg Limestone occupies even a wider area as a surface formation than the last-named, but is largely covered with Drift deposits. There are whole counties of which it is known to constitute the rocky floor, in which it does not once rise to the surface. It is seen to the best advantage in the north of Highland county, where it yields a remarkably even-bedded building stone. Like the Niagara Limestone, it is a dolomite in composition. It is poor in fossils, but the few that it contains are highly characteristic.
The transition from Upper Silurian to Devonian time which is made in ascending to the next stratum in the scale, the Corniferous Limestone, is accomplished without any structural break or irregularity, but there is an abrupt lithological change, the latter stratum being a true carbonate of lime, and an abundant and pronounced Devonian fauna appears in its very lowest beds. The Corniferous Limestone forms a narrow belt on each side of the axis, from central Ohio northward, but by the overlap of the next succeeding formations it is entirely lost in southern Ohio. Even where it constitutes the highest bedded rock it is largely obscured by Drift deposits. At Kelly's Island, Sandusky, Marion, Delaware, and Columbus it is largely worked for building stone, lime, and furnace flux. The earliest vertebrate remains of the Ohio scale are found in this stratum. The box-like skull of a large ganoid fish, Macropetalichthys sullivanti, Newberry, occurs near the base of the series, and the teeth and bones of other ganoids and selachians are frequently met with in the higher beds. In the State quarries at Columbus these remains constitute a veritable bone bed, a layer 4 to 6 inches in thickness being in large part composed of them.
A heavy deposit of black shale, the Ohio Shale of the table, and the Huron shale of Newberry, directly overlies the Corniferous Limestone in northern and central Ohio, and extends across the State from north to south. It is composed of two black shales, the Cleveland and the Huron, including a blue shale, the Erie, between them. The latter is 1200 feet thick in north-eastern Ohio, but rapidly wedges out as it is followed westward to the axis, and the Cleveland and Huron seem here to be welded into one mass. The black shale contains an average of 8 or 10 per cent. of bituminous matter, a chief source of which is found in a resinous disk of microscopic size that exists in the shale in immense numbers, which Dawson has named Sporangites huronensis. Apart from this minute form the shale is almost barren of fossils, but a few have been discovered in it, mostly at the centres of the great concretions which it contains. The gigantic placoderm, Dinichthys herzeri, Newberry, was first found in these concretions. Though dating back almost to the first appearance of fishes, Newberry has shown that its nearest relationship is with the Lepidosiren of the present day, which zoologists unite in counting as the highest of the entire class. The shale is undoubtedly the source of the natural gas and petroleum of north-eastern Ohio.
The Waverly group, which occupies about 7000 square miles of the surface of the State, is in all respects an important formation. It consists of the Bedford shale, the Berea grit, the Berea shale, the Cuyahoga shale, and the Logan group. The Berea grit has unusual geological interest. Its outcrop is a shore-line across the entire State, and it marks with perfect distinctness the eastern limit of the Cincinnati axis at this date. It is everywhere a quarry stone. The Berea stone and the Amherst stone of northern Ohio and the original Waverly stone of the lower Scioto valley belong to this horizon. In strength, durability, beauty, and the economy with which they can be worked, they stand at the head of the building stones of the State, the value of the annual products of these quarries exceeding $1,000,000. The stone is distributed as far east as the seaboard, and as far west as Duluth. Some of it has even found market in England. The Berea grit is the reservoir
of the gas and oil distilled from the underlying shales, and it is also the great source of salt water for Ohio. Another building stone of great excellence and beauty comes from the base of the Cuyahoga shale in southern Ohio,—the Buena Vista stone of the Ohio valley.
The Carboniferous Conglomerate and the Coal-measures have an aggregate thickness of at least 1500 feet, and cover more than 10,000 square miles of the surface of Ohio. The beds of coal, iron-ore, fire-clay, limestone, and cement rock that they contain render insignificant the contributions made by all other formations to the mineral wealth of the State. The Lower Coal-measures, which are here made to include the Conglomerate group of coals of Pennsylvania, contain the seams of coal enumerated below, which are distributed through 500 to 800 feet of strata. The names of the seams that are used in the Pennsylvania scale are adopted here.
| 13. | Upper Freeport | coal | | 11 |
| 12. | Lower Freeport | ” | | 10 |
| 11. | (Upper Kittaiming) | ” |
| 10. | Middle Kittaiming | ” | | 9 |
| 9. | Lower Kittaiming | ” | | 8 |
| 8. | Clarion Upper | ” | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | 7 |
| 7. | Clarion Lower | ” | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | 7 |
| 6. | Brookville | ” | | 6 |
| 5. | Tionesta | ” | | 5 |
| 4. | Upper Mercer | ” | | 4 |
| 3. | Lower Mercer | ” | | 3 |
| 2. | Quakertown | ” | | 2 |
| 1. | Sharon coal | ” | | 1 |
All these coals belong to the bituminous division. Thus far they are almost entirely worked in level free mines, and very little is taken from seams less than 3 feet in general thickness. The average thickness in the important fields is 5 feet, and the maximum (a small area of a single district) 13 feet. All of the seams enumerated above are worked, but they have very unequal values. The Middle Kittanning seam is by far the first. The Upper Freeport ranks next in value. The Sharon coal is the most valuable in proportion to its area, furnishing, in fact, the standard of comparison for the open-burning coals of the entire Alleghany field. Both it and the Middle Kittaiming seam are used in the raw state in the manufacture of iron, a fact which sufficiently attests their purity and general excellence. In the remaining divisions of the Coal-measures there are 10 or 12 additional seams that are of workable thickness at some of the localities in which they occur, but, with one notable exception, these seams are less steady and reliable than those of the lower measures. The exception is the Pittsburg coal, which is, all things considered, the most important seam of the entire coal-field to which it belongs. It is especially valued as a gas coal, and for the production of steam. Its northern outcrop passes through nine counties, with an approximate length of 175 miles, not counting the sinuosities. The area commonly assigned to it in Ohio exceeds 3000 square miles, but the seam has been proved for only a small fraction of the area claimed. In the production of bituminous coal in the United States Ohio ranked third in 1880, the output for that year being about 6,000,000 tons, but the production is rapidly increasing, and the State inspector of mines reckoned the output in 1882 at 8,000,000 tons.
Iron ore is worked at many horizons in the Coal-measures, in seams ranging from 6 inches to 19 feet in thickness. The charcoal iron of the Hanging Rock district of southern Ohio is chiefly applied to the highest uses, as the manufacture of car-wheels and castings for agricultural and other machinery. Of the 99 furnace-stacks that now stand in Ohio, almost all depend in part, and about half depend entirely, on native ore. The amount mined annually exceeds 500,000 tons. In iron and steel industries Ohio ranks next to Pennsylvania, the value of the annual product being $35,000,000. The clays of the Coal-measures are the basis of a large and rapidly growing manufacture of stone and earthen^ware. Ohio now produces one-third of the total product of the United States. In connexion with the salt production, which is large, about half of the bromine of the world is produced in Ohio. The brine of the Tuscarawas valley yields nearly 1 lb of bromine to 1 barrel of salt.
Three-fourths of Ohio are covered with the various deposits of the Drift period, which consists of “till” or boulder clay, and of the stratified sands and clays of the later stages of the period. These deposits sometimes have a thickness of 300 feet,—their average in north-western Ohio being not less than 50, and in central Ohio not less than 25 feet. In the regions which they cover they exercise a controlling influence upon the relief, drainage, soils, and water-supply. They have filled the valleys of earlier drainage systems, and in many cases have obliterated all traces of their existence. The till is filled with boulders of northern origin derived from the highlands of Canada and from intervening districts. Blocks of large size are sometimes found, some of them showing 2000 cubic feet above ground. In many instances they can be referred by their mineralogical characters to particular localities, or even to particular ledges, from a score of miles to 400 miles distant. The stratified Drift contains vast accumulations of sand, gravel, and clay, all of great economic value. Brick clays of good quality are everywhere accessible. The terminal moraine that forms the boundary of the
Glacial deposits is not in all cases as conspicuous as in the States to the east of Ohio, but even where it is least distinct soil and vegetation unite to mark the limit of glacial advance very plainly. The moraine passes through the counties of Columbiana, Stark, Wayne, Richland, Holmes, Licking, Fairfield, Ross, Highland, Adams, and Brown, as recently determined by Professor G. F. Wright.
Soils, Forests.—The division of the State into a drift-covered and driftless region coincides with the most important division of the soils. Below the line of the terminal moraine these are “native,” or, in other words, they are derived from the rocks that underlie them, or that rise above them in the boundaries of the valleys and uplands. They consequently share the varying constitution of these rocks, and are characterized by considerable inequality and by abrupt changes. All are fairly productive, and some, especially those derived from the abundant and easily-soluble limestones of the Upper Coal-measures, are not surpassed in fertility by any soils of the State. Large tracts of these excellent native soils are found in Belmont, Monroe, Noble, and Morgan counties. Among the thinner and less productive soils, which occupy but a small area, are those derived from the Devonian shales. They are, however, well adapted to forest and fruit production. The chestnut and the chestnut oak, both valuable timber trees, are partial to them, and vineyards and orchards thrive remarkably. The native soils of the Waverly group and of the Lower Coal-measures agree in general characters. They are especially adapted to forest growth, reaching the highest standard in quality of timber product. When these lands are brought under the exhaustive tillage that has mainly prevailed in Ohio thus far, they do not hold out well, but the farmer who raises cattle and sheep, keeps to a rotation between grass and small grains, and does not neglect fruit can do well upon them. The cheap lands of Ohio are found in this belt. The other great division of the soils of Ohio—viz., the Drift soils—are by far the most important, alike from their greater area and their intrinsic excellence. Formed by the commingling of the Glacial waste of all the formations to the north of them, over which the ice has passed, they always possess considerable variety of composition, but still in many cases they are strongly coloured by the formation underneath them. When any stratum of uniform composition has a broad outcrop across the line of Glacial advance, the Drift beds that cover its southern portions will be found to have been derived in large part from the formation itself, and will thus resemble native or sedentary soils. Western Ohio is underlain with Silurian limestones, and the Drift is consequently limestone Drift. The soil is so thoroughly that of limestone land that tobacco, a crop which rarely leaves native limestone soils, is grown successfully in several counties of western Ohio, 100 miles or more north of the terminal moraine. The native forests of the Drift regions were, without exception, hard-wood forests, the leading species being oaks, maples, hickories, the walnut, beech, and elm. The walnut, sugar maple, and white hickory are limited to warm, well-drained limestone land; the white oak characterizes the upland clays, while the red maple, the elm, and several of the oaks stand for the regions of sluggish drainage. This noble growth is rapidly disappearing, but several million acres still remain.
Climate.—There is a difference of at least 40° Fahr. between the average summer and winter temperatures. A central east-and-west belt of the State is bounded by the annual isotherms of 51° and 52°, the average winter temperature being 30° and the average summer temperature 73°. Southern Ohio has a mean annual temperature of 54°, and northern Ohio 49°. The annual range is not less than 100°, and sometimes 130°, the extreme of summer heat reaching 100° in the shade, while “cold waves” in winter
may depress the mercury to 30° below zero. Extreme changes are liable to occur in the course of a few hours, especially in winter, when the return trades are violently displaced by north-west winds. In such cases the temperature sometimes falls 60° Fahr. in twenty-four hours; changes of 20° or 30° in a day are not unusual. Still the climate proves itself excellently adapted to the finer growths of vegetation, while its effects on human life and on the domestic animals favour a symmetrical development and a high degree of vigour. The rainfall varies between an average of 46 inches in the Ohio valley and an average of 32 inches on the shore of Lake Erie (spring 10 to 12 inches, summer 10 to 14 inches, autumn 8 to 10 inches, winter 7 to 10 inches). The annual range is considerable. In some years there is an insufficient supply and in some there is a troublesome excess, but disastrous droughts on the large scale are unknown, and disastrous floods are rare. The vast body of water in Lake Erie favourably modifies the climate of the northern margin of the State. The belt immediately adjoining is famous for the fruits that it produces. Extensive vineyards and orchards have been planted along the shore and on the islands adjacent, and have proved very successful. The Catawba wine here grown ranks first among the native wines of eastern North America. Melons of excellent quality are raised in almost every section of the State. The peach is the least certain of all the fruits that are largely cultivated; there is rarely, however, a complete failure on the uplands of southern Ohio. The winters of Ohio are very variable. Snow seldom remains for thirty days at a time over the State at large, but an ice crop rarely fails in northern Ohio, and not oftener than once in three or four years in other portions of the State. In the southern counties cattle, sheep, and horses often thrive on pasture grounds through the entire winter.
Population.—The following table gives the population from 1840 to 1880:—
| | Population. | Population. | Population. | Density per sq. mile. |
| | Total. | Males. | Females. | Density per sq. mile. |
| 1840 | 1,519,467 | 784,100 | 735,367 | 37.3 |
| 1850 | 1,980,329 | 1,016,808 | 963,521 | 48.6 |
| 1860 | 2,339,511 | 1,190,162 | 1,149,349 | 57.4 |
| 1870 | 2,665,260 | 1,337,550 | 1,327,710 | 65.3 |
| 1880 | 3,198,062 | 1,613,936 | 1,584,126 | 78.5 |
In 1880 the coloured population numbered 2½ per cent, of the whole, and the foreign-born 12½ per cent, (from Germany 6 per cent., and from the United Kingdom 4½ per cent.).
Agriculture.—This is the leading industry, employing in 1880 397,495 persons, or about two-fifths of the total number reported as engaged in occupations of all sorts. In 1881 nearly 50,000,000 bushels of wheat and nearly 112,000,000 bushels of Indian corn were produced, the total production of cereals in the State for that year being 188,933,067 bushels, an average of sixty bushels to each inhabitant. The reported orchard products of the year would furnish ten bushels of fruit to each inhabitant, and the dairy products an average of 26 ℔. The domestic animals reach a total of 10,000,000. In number and quality of thorough-bred cattle Ohio is scarcely second to any State; in the average of its herds it ranks second to
Illinois alone. The sheep-growing counties are supplied with the best breeds of sheep, and the wool of south-eastern Ohio has long been famous for unusual strength of fibre. The annual production of wool exceeds 20,000,000 ℔, Ohio holding the first rank in this respect among the States of the Union. In the origination of agricultural 7iiachinery Ohio has taken a leading part, and in the present manufacture it easily holds the first rank, the value of the annual product exceeding $15,500,000, or one-fourth of the entire product of the United States. The average yield of wheat in the State has been doubled within the last ten years through the use of artificial fertilizers and improved methods of cultivation. An efficient system of crop reports is carried on by a State board of agriculture, and thorough control of the artificial manures sold in the State is maintained by constantly repeated chemical analyses. A State meteorological bureau also renders special service to the agricultural interest.
Manufactures, Towns and Cities.—The manufactured products of the State, according to the census of 1880, have more than twice the value of the farm products, reaching an aggregate of nearly $350,000,000. As a necessary result of the recent development of mining and manufacturing in Ohio, its cities and villages are gaining rapidly in population and wealth. Cincinnati, the largest city of the State and the eighth in the Union, had a population of 255,139 by the census of 1880. The same census credits it with about 30 per cent. of the manufactures of the State, but the reports of its chamber of commerce give it a much greater total than the census tables. Cleveland, the second city of Ohio and the eleventh of the United States, had 160,146 inhabitants, Columbus, the State capital, 51,647, and Toledo 50,137. Dayton (38,678) and Springfield (20,730) in south-western Ohio, Youngstown (15,435), Akron (16,512), and Canton (12,258) in the north-eastern quarter of the State, and Zanesville (18,113) in the central district are all thriving and ener getic cities.
Government and Administration.—All legislative power is vested in a general assembly consisting of a senate and house of representatives. Senators and representatives are elected biennially. The executive department consists of a governor, a lieutenant-governor, a secretary of state, a treasurer, and an attorney-general, all elected for a term of two years, with an auditor, elected for four years. The supreme executive power is vested in the governor, who is commander-in-chief of the militia, and may grant reprieves and pardons. The lieutenant-governor is president of the senate. There is also elected triennially a State commissioner of common schools. For the control and superintendence of all public works a board of public works is created, consisting of three members, each elected for three years. There are appointed by the governor, by and with the consent of the senate, a commissioner of railroads and telegraphs for two years, a superintendent of insurance for three years, an inspector of mines for four years, a commissioner of statistics of labour for two years; also a supervisor of public printing, a State librarian, an inspector of leaf tobacco, and a State inspector of oils for two years each, and three commissioners of fisheries for three years each. To investigate the whole system of public charities and the correctional and penal institutions of the State, eight persons, four from each of the leading political parties, are appointed by the governor for four years each to constitute a board of State charities. The judicial power is vested in a supreme court, district courts, common pleas courts, probate courts, and justices of the peace; and the legislature may create courts inferior to the supreme court in one or more counties. The supreme court consists of five judges, elected for five years each. There are nine common pleas districts with three judges each, holding office for five years; each district is divided into three parts, with one judge (and more if the legislature so provide) for each part. The district court is composed of the judges of the common pleas district together with one of the supreme court judges, any three forming a quorum. The original jurisdiction of the district court is concurrent with that of the supreme court; each county has a probate court for probate and testamentary matters. Townships are supplied with justices of the peace. All judges and justices are elected by the people. Clerks of the courts are elected by the people also. The State is divided
into two United States districts, a northern and a southern. Each district is divided into an eastern and western division. All elections are by ballot, and every sane male citizen, twenty-one years old and a resident of the State for one year next preceding election, may vote. Education is provided for by taxation and funds arising from the sale of public lands. The insane, blind, and deaf and dumb are supported by the State. A sinking fund, sufficient for discharging annually the interest of the public debt and not less than $100,000 of the principal thereof, is provided from the proceeds of the public works, sale of canal, school, and ministerial lands, and taxation. The State at present is represented in the Congress of the United States by two senators and twenty-one representatives. The legislature of the State is empowered to lay off new or change existing counties. The electors in each county elect three commissioners, for three years each, who constitute the county board. They have the care of the county property, fix the taxes, regulate roads, and provide for idiots, lunatics, and paupers. The other officers are three infirmary directors, an auditor, a secretary of the commissioners, a recorder, a surveyor, a clerk of the court of common pleas, who is also clerk of the district court, each elected for three years; also a treasurer, a sheriff, a coroner, and a prosecuting attorney, each elected for two years. In a county that has in it a city of over 180,000 population there is a board of control, consisting of five members, each elected for three years, which has a final action and jurisdiction in all matters involving expenditure of money. Each county must contain at least 400 square miles of territory. Counties are subdivided into townships, the power to do which resides in the county commissioners. Each township must contain at least 22 square miles, and be at least one election precinct. The officers are three trustees, a clerk, a treasurer, such constables as the trustees may designate, and an assessor, elected annually. The trustees oversee elections, provide for the repairing of roads, make regulations preventing the spread of diseases, provide for cemeteries and libraries if the voters deter mine to have them, and afford relief to the poor.
Education.—The Continental Congress in 1785, in an ordinance for the survey of the lands north-west of the Ohio, reserved lot number 16 in every township, equivalent to one-thirty-sixth of the township, for the support of public schools. These provisions did not apply to the Virginia military and Connecticut reserves, equal in area to about one-fourth of the entire State, nor to the United States military reservation, embracing nearly 4000 square miles. The convention that framed the State constitution in 1802 requested and obtained of Congress a concession of one-thirty-sixth of the lands in the Virginia and United States military reservations, and a like proportion for education in the Connecticut reserve, a portion of the latter, however, being set apart in the United States military reservation, the remainder from the public lands in the north western part of the State (1834). Prior to 1827 the only revenues obtained from such lands were of the nature of rents, and were wholly inadequate. In the year named a law was passed providing for the sale of the school lands, other laws also being enacted for the establishment of a fund for the support of common schools. The result of the sales is somewhat disappointing, since the entire proceeds realized up to 15th November 1882 amount to but $3,686,511.56. This is known as the common school irreducible fund. The State early undertook to supplement the revenue thus acquired by a general tax; the present law provides for a tax of one mill on the dollar. Opportunity for special levies was given as early as 1821 to district officers. At present the law authorizes every board of education to determine the amount of tax to be levied as a contingent fund for all school expenses, not exceeding seven mills on the dollar. As early as 1827 the legislature adopted the policy of making offenders against the laws contribute to the support of the schools by appropriating fines collected to the school funds. This policy still continues. The receipts for school purposes in 1882 exceed $12,000,000:—
| State tax (1 mill) | $1,580,263.51 |
| State tax (1 mill) | $1,580,263.51 |
| Interest on irreducible fund, 1881 | 229,692.71 |
| From rents and interest due for sale of lands | 20,739.23 |
| Balance on hand, 1881 | 3,472,577.04 |
| From interest and rent of lands, 1882 | 250,431.94 |
| Local taxes, 1882 | 6,168,036.89 |
| Sale of bonds, 1882 | 510,646.81 |
Of 1,081,321 young persons of school age 751,101 are enrolled and 483,232 are in daily attendance. The school sessions average 31 weeks in the year, and 24,135 teachers are employed; the illiterates above ten years of age form only 4 per cent, of the total population. The total expenses for the common schools in 1882 were $8,820,914.95.
Higher education was not neglected by the first settlers of the State. In the Ohio Company's purchase two entire townships were granted, upon which the Ohio university was established. In the Symmes's purchase a township of land was granted, which when located served as the foundation for the Miami university. There are now 62 such institutions for learning in the State, employing 457 teachers, having 11,314 students, receiving $411,309 and expending $405,573, with a property valued at $6,203,691.
Of these, 25 are enabled by their charters to confer collegiate degrees. Among the oldest and most prominent of the colleges are Antioch, Denison, Kenyon, Marietta, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan, Otterbein, St Xavier's, Western Reserve, and Wittenberg; of those more recently founded three deserve special mention, viz., the university of Cincinnati, the Case School of Applied Science at Cleveland, and the Ohio State university at Columbus. The first two are founded upon private munificence, and each is entering upon a career of great promise. The third, established upon a gift of public lands from the general Government, is specially charged with instruction in the sciences relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and is also required to include military training. In addition, therefore, to the ordinary courses of an American college, this institution is obliged to provide full facilities in applied science, and the State makes use of its faculty and equipment for all its official scientific work. The chemical work of the State Board of Agriculture and also of the State Geological Survey is performed here. The Agricultural Experiment Station and the State Meteorological Bureau are both at the university.
Finance.—The receipts of the Ohio treasury for 1882 were $6,270,396.22, and the disbursements $5,630,219.29. The funded State debt at 15th November 1882 was $4,901,665, all at 4 per cent., and the irreducible debt (trust) was $4,393,014.71, making a total State debt of $9,294,679.71, while the municipal and local debts amount to $45,766,351.22, making a total public debt of $55,061,030.93. The value of the realty was $1,116,681,655, and personalty $518,229,079, or a total valuation of $1,634,910,734. The State tax paid was $4,735,748, while the total tax was $30,618,785. Banks numbered 413, with a capital stock of $38,452,855.30; 189 were national, with a stock of $31,464,000, valued at $1,133,792.40. There were 6189 miles of railway,—receipts $46,759,399, expenditure $32,063,654.
History.—Ohio was discovered by La Salle, probably as early as 1670, and the French took formal possession of the whole north-west in 1671. In 1749 all English settlers were warned by the French commandant at Detroit to retire from the region north of the Ohio. The settlements had been made under the third charter granted by King James I. to Virginia (12th March 1611), which ceded to the colony all of the present State of Ohio lying south of 41° N. lat., and that granted by Charles II. to Connecticut (23d April 1662), which ceded to the colony all the territory of the present State lying north of 41° N. lat. The conflicting claims were set at rest by the treaty of Paris in 1763, by which France surrendered to Great Britain all her lands in the north and west as far as the Mississippi. During the progress of the American Revolution, and while the States were struggling to form a union on the basis of the articles of confederation submitted for ratification in 1777, a controversy arose as to the rightful ownership of unoccupied lands. The States appealed to their charters, as did Virginia and Connecticut, for their title to the lands north-west of the Ohio. The opposing States claimed that the unoccupied lands, though charter lands, should be surrendered for the common benefit, to become the property of the new union. The controversy was settled in some cases, as in that of New York, by the abandonment of all claims by the State; in others, among them Virginia and Connecticut, compromises were entered into by which the States made large reservations in the acts of surrender. Virginia reserved for military bounty lands about 3,710,000 acres, lying between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, and bounded on the south by the Ohio river. Connecticut reserved as a foundation for her school fund a tract extending 120 miles westward of the Pennsylvania line, bounded on the south by 41° N. lat., and by the Connecticut line on the north. The land area extended to about 3,667,000 acres. In 1800 Connecticut surrendered all jurisdictional right over these lands to the United States.
Among the last and most important acts of the Congress of the old confederation was its passing the ordinance of 1787, providing a government for the territory north-west of the Ohio. The ordinance is a remarkable document in many particulars, and especially for the clause in its sixth article, which reads: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,”—a clause which, after appearing in many State documents, at last became the property of the nation when it was adopted as the thirteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. The passing of the ordinance was closely connected with the purchase of a million and a half of acres upon the Ohio, and in the Muskingum valley, by the Ohio Company. On 9th July 1788 General St Clair, the governor, and his associates, Judges Parsons, Varnum, and Symmes, formally established the government of the Territory at Marietta, the newly-formed settlement of the company, situated on the Ohio at the mouth of the Muskingum, and named after Marie Antoinette. The next considerable purchase of land was made by Judge Symmes, who secured upwards of 311,000 acres on the Ohio, between the Great and Little Miami rivers. The site of Cincinnati was purchased from Judge Symmes by Mathias Denman of New Jersey, whose surveys
marked out in the winter of 1788-89 the town that has since grown to be the leading city of the State. Two expeditions sent against hostile Indians at the head-waters of the Miamis in 1790 and 1791 resulted in such disastrous failure that the settlers began to despair of protection. However, in 1794 General Wayne won a decisive victory over the united tribes near the rapids of the Maumee, and at the treaty of Greenville, contracted a year later with eleven chiefs, secured peace. As a result, the rapid immigration which followed enabled the residents of the Territory to avail themselves of the provisions of the ordinance in organizing a representative government for the Territory by electing a legislature, which held its first session in Cincinnati 24th September 1799. By authority of Congress a convention which met at Chillicothe in November 1802 drafted and on the 29th day of the month signed and ratified for the people the first constitution of Ohio. Several stipulations relative to school lands were made by the convention in the constitution submitted to Congress, which were conceded, and the State was admitted 19th February 1803 as the fourth under the constitution of the United States, and the seventeenth in the roll of the States. Chillicothe, which in 1800 had been made the seat of government for the North-West Territory, continued to be the capital of the State until 1810, when the Government removed to Zanesville for two years. Returning to Chillicothe, it chose Columbus in 1816 as the permanent capital of the State.
In 1821 a movement for internal improvements was inaugurated, which culminated in the construction of a canal from the Ohio to Lake Erie through the valleys of the Scioto and the Muskingum, and another from Cincinnati to Dayton. Fortunately the movement for common schools began at the same period. The canals set free the locked-up produce of the interior, and the State entered upon a new life. The completion of the Cumberland road in 1825, as far as Wheeling on the Ohio, gave the State an outlet to the sea board. While the canals were yet incomplete the construction of railroads was undertaken. The Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad from Dayton to Sandusky was the first, being chartered in 1832 and actively begun in 1835. In 1852 three through lines had been opened across the State; and its whole social and economic history thenceforward assumed a new character. Since 1840 Ohio has been the third State in the Union in point of population.
The present constitution of the State is the result of a revision of that of 1802 by a convention which assembled in Columbus 6th May 1850, and sat during part of its session at Cincinnati. It completed its work 10th March 1851, and the people ratified the revised constitution 17th June 1851. A second convention of revision was assembled in Columbus 14th May 1873, which, like its predecessor, sat also in Cincinnati. The constitution submitted, practically a new one, was rejected by the people at the October election of 1874.
    (E. O.—J. T. S.)
| VOL. XVII. | OHIO | PLATE XXII. |
| W. & A. K. Johnston Edinburgh & London |||
| ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION |||
* ↑ In the total value of quarry products Ohio ranks first among the States, more than $2,500,000 being reported in the census of 1880.
* ↑ Quite recently, however, the Ohio river has twice attained a height unprecedented in its former recorded history. In February 1883 the water rose to a height of 66 feet 4 inches, and in February 1884 to 71 feet 0¾ inch above the channel bar at Cincinnati, the last rise being nearly 7 feet in excess of the highest mark recorded previous to 1883. These great floods covered the sites of large and prosperous towns, swept away hundreds of dwellings, and inflicted deplorable losses on the residents in the great valley.