Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/853

Rh limestone on Kelley's Island and the recently opened strontia cave on Put-in-Bay Island. These islands are also favorite pleasure resorts for the whole neighborhood, and the trip was one of great interest and enjoyment. Another party, on Saturday morning, went to points of special importance in the coal region of the Hocking Valley, under the direction of Mr. R. M. Haseltine, chief mine inspector of Ohio. At Corning the party went down into Mine No. 8, owned by the Sunday Creek Coal Company, which has recently been equipped with electric power generated by utilizing the waste gas from neighboring gas-wells. This is said to be the first mine in Ohio to improve this natural source of power. At a depth of sixty-five feet the visiting party were taken by mine cars to a point where a remarkably fine exposure has been made of a carboniferous "forest," with upright trunks of Sigillaria and associated forms of coal vegetation finely displayed. At a point somewhat nearer the entrance, but at a lower level, lunch was served by the company, in a chamber lighted by electricity, two hundred feet underground and a mile from daylight! Another mine was visited later, and the machinery and appliances examined; this was No. 16, at Hollister, owned by the Courtright Coal Company.

The third party went to Fort Ancient to examine the great aboriginal earthworks at that place, owned by the State, and in charge of the Ohio Archæological Society. Here, on a hill widely overlooking the Little Miami Valley, are some of the most extensive prehistoric works in the country. The State has purchased two hundred and eighty-seven acres, and of these about one hundred acres are included within the walls. These ramparts, overgrown with large trees, follow closely the contour of the hills, and show that, whatever their age, there has been no change and little erosion since they were built. Their form is very irregular, consisting of two main areas—a northern one, called the "new fort," rudely square, and a southern one, called the "old fort," rudely triangular—connected by a narrow portion, called the "isthmus," with crescent-shaped transverse walls crossing it, and high conical mounds at the entrance to the "old fort." From the main gateway of the "new fort," starting from two mounds, two parallel walls can be traced, exactly eastward, for half a mile or more. Irregular as these works are, from the contour of the hills and the course of the ravines that bound them, yet there is also seen at times in their shaping a singular exactness of orientation that is striking and suggestive. Their use is problematical, but they must have been defensive, although an enormous force would be required to hold them, as their entire circumference is