Meigs, Scioto, Athens, Hocking, Washington, Morgan, Muskingum, Perry, Licking, Coshocton, Guernsey, Belmont, Monroe, Jefferson, Harrison, Carroll, Columbiana, and Tuscarawas counties. It is found in Portage county, near the Cuyahoga river.

It burns easily, with a whitish flame, yielding a black smoke, and a bituminous odour. Its color is black, and it soils the fingers, when touched. Sometimes, it is combined with sulphur and iron. Some beds, especially, in Licking and Guernsey counties resemble, in appearance and distinctive characters, the canel coal of England.

We find the following minerals connected with our coal, in this state, viz: 1. friable, micaceous and feruginous sandstones, coarse or fine grained. 2. Shale, or argilaceous slate, sometimes micaceous, and often bituminous, presenting impressions of leaves and vegetables, sometimes of fishes. 3. Beds of marl and compact limestone, flint rock, and hard clay. 4. Argilaceous iron ore, or pudding stone, cemented by iron ore.

This coal is almost always found in strata, and there are three such strata, extending from Zanesville, to Wheeling, in Virginia. There is one stratum near the surface; secondly, another stratum, a considerable depth below it, and a third one, about two hundred feet below the upper one. The upper stratum, in some places, is washed away, being near the surface. It is a thin one;-the second one is thicker and better, and the lower stratum is not so good for fuel, as the two strata above it.

On the whole, we may safely conclude, that we have coal enough, and more than enough, to last forever, for all the uses, to which, we shall put it, in all ages, yet to come. The coal, iron ore, and salt water, are all abundant in the same region. They form materials sufficient, to support and sustain millions of industrious, healthful, happy human beings, so long as man shall dwell on this earth.

These three articles, furnish sources of wealth, of health and happiness, that will endure, and become, more and more valuable and useful, forever.

PRAIRIES IN OHIO.

There are two species of natural meadow, which in popular language, are called Prairies. The name is derived from the early French travelers; who, in their own language, called them Prairies, or meadows. They are clothed with tall grass and flowering plants in the spring, summer and autumnal months, and on the whole, produce an aspect, in those months, on a first view, very agreeable. It must be confessed though, from their uniformity and sameness, having few or no hills in them, that their beauties soon become tiresome to the weary traveler, who traverses these plains; for such is their uniformity in appearance, that after riding all day across them, on looking around us at night, we fancy ourselves exactly where we started in the morning.

WET PRAIRIES, generally, have a rivulet winding its devious way through them. Its waters are of a reddish hue, of a disagreeable flavor to the taste, and unfit for the use of man. They are sometimes very wet and miry, and it is not uncommon for many of them during the winter and spring, to be covered with water to a considerable depth. Lying, as they do, either on almost a dead level, or surrounded by higher grounds, the water which accumulates on their surface, runs off slowly, while the main body of it is left, either to stagnate, or to evaporate, under the influence of a summer's sun.

On the north side of Circleville, commences a wet prairie, extending northwardly, several miles. In width from east to west, it averages from half a mile, to one mile. Its descent, towards the south, is about one foot in a mile, as ascertained by a competent engineer, employed for that purpose, by our Canal Commissioners. The Ohio and Lake Erie Grand Canal, passes through it from north to south. A small rivulet winds its way, from near its centre, towards its southwestern corner, where it finds itself in the bottom lands near Hargus's creek; and a similar rivulet discharges its turbid waters into the Scioto river, near the north western corner of this natural meadow. Near

its centre, is its highest elevation, owing to the mouth of "Dry run," being discharged there, from the east. A ridge of land of considerable elevation, in some places, separates this prairie from the Scioto, on the West, the river being from one fourth, to a half mile distant from its western edge. These particulars must supply the absence of an accompanying map.

Several years since, for the double purposes of making a fence, and of draining a portion of these wet lands, a ditch was dug in them of considerable length, and from appearance, we should say, it was four feet wide, and as many in depth. By examining this ditch, while the digging was going on, as well as the materials excavated from it, we ascertained that this prairie contained a great abundance of peat. We have specimens of it, which burn briskly, and produce a good degree of heat. Its quality is of the very best species; it exists in quantities entirely sufficient, amply to supply with fuel, the surrounding country, for ages yet to come. It is composed of fibres, and is of that species called "compact." Similar peat exists in a prairie through which the main road from this town to Columbus passes, six miles south of the State Capitol. It exists in all the wet prairies, which we examined for it, in this county, and in those of Madison, Champaign, Clark and Montgomery. In December, 1814, we found it in the wet prairie, adjoining to, and east of the town of Urbana. While on the same tour, we saw similar peat, in the prairie skirting the Mad river, from near to Springfield, Clark county, almost all the way to Dayton, situate at the confluence of the Mad river, with the Great Miami. The prairie north of Circleville, appears to have been the bed of some considerable stream, the Scioto river perhaps. In some places it is four feet from the present surface, to the ancient one. On the latter, once stood a thick forest of white cedar trees; these trees now lie on the ancient surface, in different stages of decay. Some of them appear to have been broken down by violence, others were turned up with their roots, entire, while others seem to have mouldered away, and died of old age. We have a fragment of one of these

trees*, which has on it,

27

evident marks of an axe, or of some other sharp edged tool. From its appearance, since the axe was applied to it, this fragment must have lain many, very many centuries in the earth, where it was interred four feet below the present surface. There can be but little doubt, that the axe used, was owned by one of the people, who erected the ancient works here. The whole prairie was once a cedar swamp; and from undoubted sources of information, we are satisfied that many of our wet prairies were once cedar swamps also. Near Royalton, in Fairfield county, and in several places in the western part of Pickaway county; and, also in Warren county, similar proofs of the former existence of cedar groves in wet prairies, have been discovered. Time, and the accumulation of a deep soil, on the former surface, have made these prairies what they are.

We have seen the bones of deer and other animals reposing on the ancient surface of these natural meadows; and we confidently expect to be able to find here, in great numbers, the bones of the great mastodon of CUVIER. The bones of that animal, found near Jackson Court House, in this State, were discovered on the ancient surface of a wet prairie. A tooth in my possession, disinterred in the bank of "Plum run," three miles west of me, was discovered in a situation exactly similar. Many persons seem to have adopted the idea, that the mammoths found in such places, were mired there and thus lost their lives. That individuals of that family, might have thus died, no one will pretend to doubt; but all the remains of that an:mal, discovered in Ohio, so far as we know, seem to have belonged to such as died a natural death; their bones having been scattered about in confusion, in a manner cntirely similar to those of our domestic animals which die of old age or disease. I know of no skeleton of that animal's being found in this state, though parts of them, especially the teeth, are very often discovered. They are washed out of the banks of small streams, passing through wet prairies. The teeth of the animal being

This specimen was deposited in Letton's Museum, Cincinnati.

less destructible than other parts of the skeleton, may be the reason why these are so often found; yet, I suspect, that, by examining the earth around where the teeth are procured, whole skeletons might be discovered-or nearly whole ones. It is true, that teeth of the mastodon are frequently found in and about Pickaway Plains, lying on the present surface of the earth; but these were doubtless brought and left where they are now found, by the Indians. These teeth, thus found, were near the dwelling houses of the aborigines, and no search has been made for the remaining parts of the skeletons.

Where teeth are found in situ, further search ought always to be made, which would doubtless lead to the discovery of other relics, highly valuable. At the time when our wet prairies were cedar swamps, and presented almost impenetrable thickets, it is evident enough, that they were frequented by the great mastodon and other wild animals; and that man was here also, then, or very soon afterwards, appears equally evident, from the marks which he has left, of his labor and his art, on the fragment of a tree, above mentioned.

The fear of rendering myself tedious to the reader, admonishes me to quit the ancient abode of the mammoth, and describe

THE DRY PRAIRIES.-They are not, as in Kentucky, underlaid with limestone; nor have we, in this part of Ohio, any barrens thus underlaid. Ours are, so far as we know and believe, in appearance like the bottom lands along our streams. The surface is a rich, black, deep loam, underlaid with pebbles, which are water worn, rounded and smoothed. Many of these natural meadows, lie high above any stream of water, now, or probably ever in existence.-If we have any tracts in Ohio, very properly denominated DILUVIUM, Pickaway Plains, three miles below Circleville, belong to that class of formations. This is a dry prairie, or rather was one not many years since. This prairie is about seven miles long, and nearly three miles broad. It was in this plain, that a human skeleton was dug up, which circumstance was mentioned by me in a former volume of Silliman's Journal, to which I refer the