Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1858-12-21

Andrews, of Marietta College, Cn "The
Geology Of South Eastern Ohio" was at
tended by one Of the largest and most at
tentive audiences ever convened in Pome-
roy on similar occasion.
The maps and diagrams which Prof
Andrews displayed before his audience,
were lecture in themselves, and with the
numerous specimens of qualifications and
fossil remains which he exhibited, rem
dered the occasion one of great interest.
The Professor commenced by refer
ence to the surface Of the earth, taking
the terrace upon which Marietta stands as
a starting point; and, as our readers know,
there stand upon that terrace some of the
grandest monuments of antiquity. The
Professor, in beautiful apostrophe, sung
the requiem of the mysterious "Mound
builders" who lived, and worked, and
warred, and worshiped there, unrecorded
ages before the advent of the aborigines
found upon the scene, when America was
discovered By Columbus and his cotem-
Poraries. IS @% SIR vs~al
; AS relics of stilliremoter antiquity,
he presented us The teeth of the fossil ele-
phant, the Mammoth and Maslodon, creaf
lures of such gigantic proportions, that in
comparison, the elephant of our times
would be but a child's pet plaything.-
One of these teeth, molar or a grinder,
with all that part originally embedded in.
the iaw-bone decayed and gone,t leaving
only the part covered and protected by
enamel, weighed thirteen pounds. Before
the supposed days of Noah--before the
time we assign 10 Adam and Eve's Hor-
ticultural experiments in the Garden of
Eden-before the first election Of Presi-,
dent by the Mound builders--in fac, t,eras,
before the times of any conjectured, pre-
decessors of the Mound builders, these
monstrous animals roamed in herds over
the hills and plains we now inhabit, and
lived and fattened ON vegetation as gi-
gantic in proportion as themselves, and
which passed away with them,, leaving
only the dim outlines of their unclassificd
botany TO be read in the fossil leaf-prins
aDd petrifed fragments found in our coal
beds.
Passing still downward. the Professor
showed us in the same terrace beds. va
rious strata OF "drift" substance, COM
posed of sand and waterworn pebbles,
brought from the far Northern parts of
the Continent-from beyond the present
lakes-by running torrents, by tie lashing
waves of then existing ocean, OF carried
as ballast in floating ice bergs, which
dropped them in their present positions on
being dissolved by the moro Southern
sun. .a} o
Passing through these numerous strata,
accumulated through centuries, the CON
temptation of which bewilders the intel
lect, he brought US to The sand-rock which
overlies our beds of coal. This was OF
course deposited from, the sediment of
water which then covered all this region,
and held in its turbid bosom, ,disintegrated
from higher elevations, the material oI
which these rocks are composed.
Leaving his audience to fix The date,
and determine for themselves the length
of time required to deposite and consoli-
date these rocks, he presented the still
underlying strata Of shale, an older brother
of the sandstone, deposited in the same
way, but under different conditions. One
would have thought, beginning as he did,
at the evening of the day of the ea-th's
cfeation-on its surface-and tracing
backward the steps Of it's completion in
its various strata, he would by This time
have reached its noon at least, if not its
morning. But just here, he opened
another chapter in the great history
Ages before the deposite of these shales
and sandstone rocks-ages before the al
most shoreless ocean which deposited them
existed, an exuberant Vegetation covered
the then surface of the ground. Fcrns
that rivaled our forests in magnitude. mai.
ted together by concentrated network
of MOSES as large as our wild grapevines
formed impenetrable jungles, which by
decay and reproduction through the re-
quisiLe ages, collected the carbon, which
properly manipulated in Natures grant
laboratory produced, and slowed away TO
our use the coal that is now doing mor'
than anything else for the civilization @
man.
Beyond, and below the coal, strata upor
strata, was shown the progress of the for
NATION of the ear.h-fre clay, limestone
various other strata, and coal again--=re
peating 'he series until lost in the illimit