The amount of taxable property assessed in 1887, was, real estate in cities, towns and villages, $464,681,331; real estate not in cities, towns and villages, $720,329,294; chattel property, $520,172,094. The rate of State tax was 29 cents on $100. In addition to the State tax there was levied in 1887, county taxes, $8,372.519; township, $1,099,963; school, $7,682,120; city, town and village, $7,606,025; special, $1,144,338. The debts of counties in 1887 were $6,892,745; cities of the first and second class, $43,193,963; incorporated villages, $1,743,722; townships, $557,883; special school districts, $2,455,330. The number of banks in 1887 was 429 with a capital of $46,568,211 of which 211 were national banks with a capital of $31,542,003. Educational.-In 1887 there were 12,589 school-houses in the State, valued at *This amount includes $80,000.00 advance draft drawn on the taxes collected for the fiscal year 1888. $29,287,749. Of 1,102,701 children of school age 767,030 were enrolled in the schools. There were 24,687 teachers employed, and an income for support of schools of $14,031,692; expenditures, $9,909,813, of which $6,252,518 was paid to teachers. School age from 6 to 21 years. Ohio has three State Colleges, Ohio State, Miami and Ohio Universities. The number of volumes in libraries in 1826 was 991,086. The number of students in colleges and universities in 1887 was 1,613 males and 765 females; instructors, 265. Total number of graduates, 6,317 males and 1,821 females. Value of all property, including endowments, $6,998,592. In 1887 there were also in Ohio 81 academies, normal, preparatory and other schools, with 5,635 male, 3,516 female students and 579 instructors. Manufactures.-The State Reports of 1887 gave Ohio 6,513 industrial establishments, employing 187,925 men and 29,281 women. Amount of capital invested, $196,113,670. Value of products, $344,245,690. The leading branches, as given by the United States census of 1880, are: Mining. Ohio ranks second to Pennsylvania only in the production of bituminous coal. The number of coal mines worked in Ohio in 1887 was 729, employing 22,237 men. The total yield was 10,301,708 tons. The total amount of iron ore mined in 1887 was 377,465 tons; fire-clay, 366,476 tons. During the year 1885 there was produced of salt 530,000 barrels, about 300,000 barrels of cement, 18,000 tons of mineral fertilizers, $500,000 worth of grindstones and 1,116,375 tons of limestone. Relative Rank.-Ohio ranks first in value of quarry products, value of farm lands, manufacture of agricultural implements, glycerine, number of brick and tile factories, number of churches, in receipts for school purposes. Second. In iron and steel manufactures, petroleum, natural gas, number of farms, tons of freight carried by railroads, miles of railroad track, butter and cheese establishments, bituminous coal mined, expenditures for school purposes, number of school teachers and average daily attendance of children at school. Third. In sheep, salt, wheat, population, in number of tanned leather and sawn lumber establishments, value of railroads and number of cars in use, capital employed in railroads, number of dwellings, persons engaged in agriculture and in the professions, value of church property. Fourth. Tobacco raised, value of live stock, number of persons engaged in manufactures, total value of real estate, value of farm implements in use, printing and publishing. Fifth. Number of milch cows, swine, horses, cattle, hay, barley, corn, oats. Area.--Ohio ranks the twenty-fourth State in area. THE GEOGRAPHY AND By EDWARD ORTON, State Geologist. EDWARD ORTON, LL. D., was born at Deposit, Delaware county, New York, March 9, 1829. His parents were Rev. Samuel G. Orton, D. D., and Clara Gregory Orton. The Ortons are first known in New England about 1640, the name appearing in this year in the records of Charlestown, Massachusetts. Thomas Orton came to Windsor, Connecticut, in 1641 or 1642. From Windsor certain members of the family emigrated in the year 1700 or thereabouts to the new settlements of Litchfield, which was then on the edge of the wilderness. There were thus two branches of the family-one at Windsor and one at Litchfield. The Litchfield Ortons lived for more than a century on what was known as Orton Hill, South Farms. They were well represented in the Revolutionary war, but beyond this do not appear to have taken prominent part in public life. They seem to have been a quiet, home-loving, fairly thrifty stock, possessed of a good deal of family affection and interest. Miles Orton, the father of the Rev. Samuel G. Orton, was a soldier in the war of 1812 and died soon after the war. Samuel G. Orton was born at Litchfield and was brought up on a farm until 20 years old, when, under the ministry of Dr. Lyman Beecher, he was encouraged to seek a liberal education. He was obliged to support himself by his own labor both while preparing for college and during his entire course. He graduated at Hamilton College in 1822 and studied theology in New Haven. He was an honored minister in the Presbyterian Church for nearly 50 years; most of which time he spent in Western New York. EDWARD ORTON. Edward Orton passed his boyhood in his father's country home at Ripley, Chautauqua county, New York. He acquired here a knowledge of and life-long interest in country life, often working among the neighboring farmers for weeks and even months at a time. He was fitted for college mainly by his father, but spent one year in Westfield Academy and another in Fredonia Academy. He entered Hamilton College, the college where his father had graduated, as a sophomore in 1845 and graduated in 1848. He taught after graduation for a year in the academy of Erie, Penna. He entered Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, in 1849, and was under Dr. Lyman Beecher's instruction. He withdrew from the seminary on account of a temporary failure of his eyes, but after a year or two spent on the farm and in travel he resumed the work of teaching, becoming a member of the faculty of the Delaware Institute, Franklin, Delaware county, N. Y. In college his chief interest had been in literary and classical studies, but in the institute he was set to teaching the natural sciences and a latent taste for these studies was soon developed. He pursued the studies of chemistry and the natural history branches with special interest, and to prepare himself better for teaching them took a six months' course in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, in 1852, studying under Horsford and Cooke and Gray. Finding that his theological creed was giving way under his later studies he sought to avert the change by more thorough investigation in this department, and entered Andover Seminary to attend for a year Prof. Park's lectures on theology. The experiment was successful to the extent of arresting the change in his views, but after a few years the process was resumed and ended in the replacement of the Calvinistic creed in which he had been brought up by the shorter statements of Unitarianism. In 1856 he was called to the chair of natural science in the State Normal School of New York, at Albany. He held this position for several years, resigning it to take charge of Chester Academy, Orange county, N. Y. After spending six years in this position he was called in 1865 to Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was first made principal of the preparatory department, then professor of natural history, and finally in 1872 president of the institution. This last position he held but for one year, resigning it in 1873 to accept the presidency of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, now the State University, at Columbus. He was also made professor of geology in this institution at the same time. He held the presidency for eight years and retained the professorship of geology after resigning the former place. During his residence in Yellow Springs the State geological survey was organized under Newberry. Prof. Orton became in 1869 a member of the geological corps, being appointed thereto by Governor R. B. Hayes. He was reappointed by Governor Noyes, and after Newberry's withdrawal from the field was appointed State geologist by Governor Foster and at a still later day by Governor Hoadly. This latter position he has held in conjunction with the professorship of geology in the State University. He was married in 1855 to Mary M. Jennings of Franklin, N. Y., who died in 1873. In 1875 he was married to Anna Davenport Torrey of Millbury, Mass. In addition to his geological work proper Prof. Orton has taken an active interest in the applications of geology to agriculture and sanitary science and especially to the questions of water supply and sewerage of the towns of Ohio. A. GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO. The boundaries of Ohio, as fixed in the enabling act by which, in 1802, it was admitted into the Union, were as follows: on the east the Pennsylvania line; on the south the Ohio river to the mouth of the Great Miami river; on the west a due north line from the mouth of the Great Miami; on the north an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east after intersecting the meridian that makes the western boundary of the State until it intersects Lake Erie or the territorial line, and thence, with the same, through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line. As The eastern, southern and western boundaries remain unchanged; the northern boundary has been slightly modified. finally established by Congress in 1836 it consists of a direct line, or in other words of the are of a great circle instead of a parallel of latitude, from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Maumee Bay and thence northeast to the boundary line between the United States and Canada, and along this boundary to its intersection with the western boundary of Pennsylvania. The change here indicated was provided for in the enabling act above referred to, and also in the constitution of Ohio which was established in 1802, but the cause that led to making it in 1836 was a dispute that had arisen between the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan as to jurisdiction along this border. The dispute assumed the character of a war of small proportions and of short duration during the administration of Governor Lucas, of Ohio, an account of which is given elsewhere in this work. The territory of the State can be further lefined as included between 38° 27′ and 41° 57 north latitude, and between 80° 34′ and 84° 49′ west longitude ("American Clyclopædia," article OHIO). The longest north and south line that can be drawn in the State is about 210 miles; the longest east and west line is about 225 miles. The area of Ohio, according to the most recent computations, is 40,760 square miles (Compendium, 10th Census, II., 1413). PHYSICAL FEATURES. The surface of the State is an undulating plain, the highest elevation of which thus far measured is found at a point in Logan county, three and a half miles northeast of Bellefontaine, and which is locally known as Hogue's hill. The elevation of this highest land in Ohio is 1,550 feet above mean tide, counting Lake Erie 573 feet above mean tide. The lowest land in the State is found at its southwestern corner at the intersection of the valleys of the Ohio and the Great Miami rivers. Low water mark at this point is a little less than 440 feet above tide. The highest and the lowest elevations of the State are thus seen to be only 1,100 feet apart, but small as is this range the figures used in stating it unless qualified would be misleading. In reality the areas less than 550 feet above tide or more than 1,300 feet above are insignificant. Practically the range of the State is reduced to about 750 feet. The elevations of a few places, variously distributed through the State, are given below. The authorities for these figures are quite unequal in value, but they are the best we have: every one of the counties named above the highest land of the State is or has been claimed by residents of these counties. The figures given in this table show the highest recorded elevations, but not necessarily the highest elevations. They can, however, be made to indicate by proper combination the highestlying districts of the State. The largest connected areas of high land extend from east to west across the central and northern central districts. In some limited regions of Central Ohio, especially along the ridge of high land just referred to, and also in a few thousand square miles of Northwestern 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 cleared away and the water courses are open 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 main watershed which extends across the State from its northeastern corner to about the middle of its western boundary. It divides the surface of the State 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 directed to the Gulf of Mexico by the Ohio river. The average height of the watershed is about 1,100 feet above tide, but it is cut by three principal gaps, viz., those of the Tuscarawas, Scioto and Maumee rivers respectively. The elevation is reduced in these gaps to about 950 feet. They have been occupied by canals and railways for a number of years. The watershed depends on two different lines of geological formation in different portions of the State, to the eastward on bedded rocks which rise in a low arch along the line that the watershed follows, and to the westward by enormous accumulations of glacial drift the maximum thickness of which is more than 500 feet. Ohio owes but very little of the relief of its surface to folds of the rocks which underlie it. There are no pronounced anticlines or synclines in its structure. When successively lifted from the sea beneath which they were formed its several strata were approximately horizontal and also of approximately the same elevation. The present relief of the State is mainly due to erosive agencies. The original plain has been carved and dissected into complicated patterns during the protracted ages in which it has been worn away by rains and rivulets and rivers. Comparatively little of it now remains. In each river system there is one main furrow that is deepened and widened as it advances, and tributary to the main furrow are countless narrower and shallower valleys which in turn are fed by a like system of smaller troughs. Most of the streams have their main valleys directed through their entire extent to either the north or the south, adapting themselves thus to the two main slopes of the State, but occasionally a considerable stream will for a score or more miles undertake to make its way against the general slope. A sluggish flow necessarily characterizes such streams. Examples are found in Wills creek, a tributary of the Muskingum, and in Connotton creek, which flows into the Tuscarawas river. Fragments of the old plain still remain in the isolated hills" or table-lands 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 often occur in narrow and isolated serpentine ridges between the streams. These high lands rise to a maximum height of 600 feet above the rivers in the main valleys. Strictly speaking, there are no hills in Ohio, to say nothing of mountains, and there never have been any. The relief, as has been shown, results from valleys carved out of the original plain. The glacial drift has had much to do in establishing the present topography, but its influence can be better stated at a later point in this review. B. GEOLOGY OF OHIO. The geology of Ohio, though free from the obscurity and complications that are often met with in disturbed and mountainous regions, is still replete with scientific and economic interest. It has occupied the attention of students of this science for more than half a century, and during this time there have been a number of able men who have devoted many years of their lives to working out its problems. The State has also made large expenditures in carrying on geological investigations and in publishing the results of the same. It is still engaged in the work. It Previous to 1836, not much was known in regard to the age and order of the rock formations of the State. In fact, the science of geology was then but little advanced in any part of the country. Hon. Benjamin Tappan published a few notes pertaining to the coal fields of Ohio, in Silliman's Journal (afterwards the American Journal of Science and Arts), between 1820 and 1830, and Caleb Atwater included in his archæological researches some geological observations. was, however, to Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, that we owe the first extended and connected accounts of the geology of any portions of our territory. His notes upon the salines or salt springs of the State and of the Ohio valley are full of interesting observations, but the account begun by him in the American Journal of Science and Arts in 1836 entitled "Observations on the Bituminous Coal Deposits of the valley of the Ohio, and the accompanying rock strata, with notices of the fossil organic remains and the relics of vegetable and animal bodies, illustrated by a geological map, by numerous drawings of plants and shells and by views of interesting scenery," is decidedly the most comprehensive and important statement that had |