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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY 2d
should, perhaps, be enumerated among the material mineral resources
of Erie County, as, though not found upon the surface, they lie not far
below. The quantity and accessibility Of these materials are, however,
yet so much in doubt that no one would be justified in anticipating a
great increase in the wealth of the. county from this source.
An amateur geologist of Erie County contributes the folloAving to
the geology of Erie County:
'' From the backAvood log birthplace of Perkins Township came D. L.
C. Ransom to the Sandusky High School with his mind fiercely afire with
the torch of learning to be, had, and so ingenously ignorant of toAvn ways
and language that being called 'Country Jake' was not understood as
applying to him in 1857. In the school room came the superintendent,
M. F. CoAvdry, bearing a piece of silurious limestone enclosing fossils
Avhich Avas being shown to the principal, S. S. Cotton. CoAvdry said:
'These are the shells of once living bivalves Avhich once lived in a salt
sea extending from the Gulf of Mexico far to the north of its present
bounds, and as they died sank to the bottom and eventually were
cemented together at a very SIOAV rate of deposition requiring millions of
years.' 'No .such tiling,' flatly asserted the principal, Cotton. 'These,'
pointing at the Bible lying on his desk, 'is the word of God that this
Avorld Avas made in six days. Take your stone aAvay to macadamize the
streets. That BOOK settles that for me.' Then the superintendent took
up the cudgel for science. 'The dredge in front of London on the Thames
brought to the surface shells cemented together just as these AA'ere.' 'Oh,
well.' retorts the principal. 'God had the right and poAA'er to make them
just in that shape if he wished. I Avould not limit his poAver.' 'But,'
ansAvers the superintendent, 'these English fossils contained a silver coin
from the Roman occupation. NOAV Avhen did God begin to lie?' Moth
separated, satisfied each with his contentment in his position. With
cars alert, this lad drank in this conversation, and the one folloAving.
The superintendent again brought in a surface silurious limestone finely
polished on its upper side, and attacking the principal Avith an assertion
that, some aAvful power must have shoved boulder sand and pebbles across
it and that the poAver must have been ice many thousand feet deep to
have made the marks so straight that there Avas no deviation. Again
the principal remonstrated with 'Just big heaps of ice along Lake Eric
shore in Avinter storms would account for it.' They little noticed the
learner, AVIIO, following' their acrid contentions, sought evidences from'
Maine to California, and from the crests of Mount Washington to Mount
Mitchell in North Carolina, and from Cincinnati to Sitka, Alaska, confirming
the assertions of science.
"The beginnings of a glacier is one of the lightest operations of nature
—the falling of a SHOAV flake. Then from the very first one that ever fell,
a. long time elapses until the climate changes colder and colder, until the
snow lies all summer on the ground but partially thawed; then numberless
ages it accumulates until it covers the mountain tops and valleys
betAveen with consolidated snow as ice, as even noAV it covers Greenland
and the South Pole land to miles in depth. NOAV Avhen this slowly heaped