# The Teays River...the proto Scioto River



## Smead

Too cold to fish...so on to research!!

Central Ohio was a wilderness just 200 years ago, it's fascinating going even further back.

The Teays River:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teays_River



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Scioto River:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scioto_River



> The geologic history of the Scioto River is tied to the destruction of the Teays River network during the Ice Ages and consequent creation of the Ohio River. The north flowing Teays River was dammed by glaciers and damming of other rivers led to a series of floods as lakes overflowed into adjacent valleys. Glacial Lake Tight is estimated to have been two-thirds the size of modern Lake Erie. Valleys beyond the reach of glaciers were reorganized to create the Ohio River and the Scioto River replaced the Teays River.


Glacial Lake Tight...existed until just 6500 years ago...900 feet deep and dammed near Chillicothe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Tight

Fishing tidbit...presence of bowfin and gar:



> Through all its shifts and changes the river has retained a continuous history, with the result that the present Ohio-Mississippi river system contains some unique relict populations descended from Jurassic fishes of the Teays, such as the Bowfin and the Gar.


Up until the Pliestocene glaciations beginning about 2.5 million years ago, no Ohio River, no Lake Erie.

Interestingly enough, we are considered to be in an interglacial period...glaciers could very well be coming back:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene


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## Smead

Sticking to just the latest glaciation, The Wisconsin...which has 3 interglacial periods...including the one we are in:



> The Wisconsin Glacial Episode was the most recent major advance of continental glaciers in the North American Laurentide ice sheet.[1] This glaciation is made of three glacial maxima (sometimes incorrectly called ice ages) separated by interglacial warm periods (such as the present). These glacial maxima are called, from oldest to youngest, Tahoe, Tenaya and Tioga.
> 
> The Tahoe reached its maximum extent perhaps about 70,000 years ago. Little is known about the Tenaya. The Tioga was the least severe and last of the Wisconsin Episode. Termed the Late Wisconsin, this last of the Wisconsin glaciation began about 30,000 years ago, reached its greatest advance 21,000 years ago, and ended about 10,000 years ago.
> 
> At the height of glaciation the Bering land bridge permitted migration of mammals, including humans, to North America from Siberia.




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It's interesting to realize that the portions of Ohio not covered by ice had the climate of far north tundra with permafrost for long periods.

It also causes one to wonder what it was like here climate-wise during past interglacial periods....and how quickly the ice could come back.


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## Smead

An article indicating that we may be at the end of a interglacial period and be heading toward a glacial period...to include evidence that there was also warming at the end of the previous interglacial period...before the ice came back.

http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=69533&CultureCode=en


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## acklac7

wasn't the teyas the biggest river system like ever? I think I read somewhere that migrating birds still identify the teyas valley from the air and "stop-in" thinking there's going to be water.

And to cold to fish? blasphemy! As long as the temps are above freezing im fine, "too cold to fish" for me is anything below 10degrees...Just gotta dress for it.


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## seethe303

acklac7 said:


> wasn't the teyas the biggest river system like ever? I think I read somewhere that *migrating birds still identify the teyas valley from the air and "stop-in" thinking there's going to be water*.


that is so freakin' cool!!! 


this is a very interesting thread


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## Mushijobah

Good stuff. You're doing a better job at educating the public than many professors!


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## FOSR

You're just :T for me on this thread, I know it.

To put it very simply: The Teays used to flow north and you can still see some of that where the glaciers haven't scraped it flat, south of Chillicothe. But the modern Scioto runs south in that same bed because the Ohio valley is low enough to steal it. The history of the Ohio River iis complicated as hell but there used to be a "deep stage" a few hundred feet lower than today's riverbed. And when the ice blocked the Teays, Lake Tight was formed. 
Lake Tight's bed sediments are the reason for Ohio's pottery industry.

(Man, if I could go back in time to see the river "overtop a divide" to cut a new bed, what an event to witness)

So how old is the Scioto above Chillicothe? I've read somewhere that the Scioto and Olentangy valleys follow fractures in the bedrock. Personally I suspect the Scioto formed along a line of karst features (caves and sinkholes) but I also suspect it had some glacial floods like the events that formed the Scablands. In riverbanks south of Columbus I've seen microwave-sized boulders in the sediment layers, what kind of flood event moves stones that size?

Tributaries like Hayden Run and Indian Run are scouring back as fast as they can. Yesterday at Hayden I saw some fresh spalling of stone from the waterfall face, advancing it an inch maybe, so how long did it take to cut that little gorge all the way from the riverbank? Ten thousand years? Or is it older than the last round of glaciers?

Geology will blow your mind if you let it. This stuff happened here, and it's not over yet, we're just seeing a little slice of the story.


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## seethe303

FOSR said:


> Geology will blow your mind if you let it.


so what you're saying is...

*puts on sunglasses*

geology rocks.


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## Mushijobah

Yeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!


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## Smead

I'm just about an uneducated bumpkin, but I like reading about this stuff...it's fascinating...fun to share.

The entire Pliestocene is interesting...an age of ice which we are still in apparently.

Not too long ago, geologically speaking, Ohio had an arctic climate with permafrost...10-20 thousand years ago. though I was surprised at the dating of glacial Lake Tight...still around only 6500 years ago!!

And these people actually were able to see the land as the ice retreated and the land changed it's climate...no one person did of course, but generations who had to adapt to the change.

*Paleoindian Period

13000 B.C. to 7000 B.C.*

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1280&nm=Paleoindian-Period

*Clovis Culture

9500 B.C. to 8000 B.C. *

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2044&nm=Clovis-Culture

I wonder if any mammoths ever got chased down what is now Broad Street??


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## Smead

Going back 500 million years, there's an incredible amount of interesting material.

You have the continents wandering all over the place, forming a super continent and breaking apart, no ice on the planet at all for long periods, super high oxygen levels allowing huge insects and massive wildfires, tens of millions of years where the planet was just about a vast, forested swamp so as to produce all those coal and peat deposits, an ocean in the middle of North America, and the Tethys Ocean becoming the Mediterranean, Black, Aral and Caspian Seas.

Late Jurassic...145 milion years ago:



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## Smead

At one time, it is believed that the Appalachian Mountains were even higher than the Himilayas are today.

The paleogeology and paleoclimontology of Antarctica...portions at the equator...ferns and forests...marisupial mammals and a tropical/sub-tropical climate as late as 65 million years ago.

Interesting is that changes in ocean currents dictated by changing continental positions had a huge impact on climate.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica#Geological_history_and_paleontology


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## SpecialNick

i too stopped reading after "too cold to fish" ... this sounds like a good conversation for the boat/bank this weekend.


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## Smead

FOSR said:


> You're just :T for me on this thread, I know it.
> 
> To put it very simply: The Teays used to flow north and you can still see some of that where the glaciers haven't scraped it flat, south of Chillicothe. But the modern Scioto runs south in that same bed because the Ohio valley is low enough to steal it. The history of the Ohio River iis complicated as hell but there used to be a "deep stage" a few hundred feet lower than today's riverbed. And when the ice blocked the Teays, Lake Tight was formed.
> Lake Tight's bed sediments are the reason for Ohio's pottery industry.
> 
> (Man, if I could go back in time to see the river "overtop a divide" to cut a new bed, what an event to witness)
> 
> So how old is the Scioto above Chillicothe? I've read somewhere that the Scioto and Olentangy valleys follow fractures in the bedrock. Personally I suspect the Scioto formed along a line of karst features (caves and sinkholes) but I also suspect it had some glacial floods like the events that formed the Scablands. In riverbanks south of Columbus I've seen microwave-sized boulders in the sediment layers, what kind of flood event moves stones that size?
> 
> Tributaries like Hayden Run and Indian Run are scouring back as fast as they can. Yesterday at Hayden I saw some fresh spalling of stone from the waterfall face, advancing it an inch maybe, so how long did it take to cut that little gorge all the way from the riverbank? Ten thousand years? Or is it older than the last round of glaciers?
> 
> Geology will blow your mind if you let it. This stuff happened here, and it's not over yet, we're just seeing a little slice of the story.


I have to head to work now, but I'll find some links to what glacial melt from glaciers can do tomorrow...quite a bit is happening under the ice as it melts, as well as effects of meltwater downstream of the melting glacial face.


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## Smead

acklac7 said:


> wasn't the teyas the biggest river system like ever? I think I read somewhere that migrating birds still identify the teyas valley from the air and "stop-in" thinking there's going to be water.
> 
> And to cold to fish? blasphemy! As long as the temps are above freezing im fine, "too cold to fish" for me is anything below 10degrees...Just gotta dress for it.


I'm really scrawny...no helpful padding...have to go dressed like an eskimo...also on a weird work schedule...I won't see the sun for a couple of months.


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## shroomhunter

This is cool stuff guys, I really always wanted to study this stuff and make a living doing it but I'll just enjoy reading your studies. A fact I learned about the New River in West Virginia is that it is believed to be the second oldest river in the world today, that's why The Gorge is so deep,at least that's what I read at the overlook there. I'm sure you could provide some more detailed info on that one as well.
Interesting stuff, keep it coming. Thank you for the good read.


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## streamstalker

Somewhere along Raccoon Creek near Granville there is a plaque about the age of the creek. I seem to remember reading it is monstrously old, but it didn't make much of an impression on me because I never gave much thought as to how glaciation radically changed the drainage. Anyone have any info on that?


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## browns_jr88

i know this doesnt really apply to the links but it does kinda... but the school i went to was Teays Valley in ashville.. my senior year of school.. we learned the school got it's name from the Teays River... cool that this link would mention that... good luck to all those brave fishermen an women who go out in freezing weather..


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## FOSR

Smead said:


> At one time, it is believed that the Appalachian Mountains were even higher than the Himilayas are today.


I've heard as high as the Rockies.

At places like Hocking Hills or Nelson Ledges, you can find gravels ("conglomorates") in the sandstone. You can dislodge them from the matrix and toss them in the stream.

So, that stone was first a quartz crystal in granite, in the roots of a mountain chain. The mountains rose and wore away, the granite was exposed, and it weathered to clay leaving behind the quartz crystals. (Quartz is so chemically stable that it never wears away, it just gets ground to sand.)

How long did that take? Chapter 2: The crystals are washed out of the mountains. That stone traveled from somewhere in modern PA to Ohio, losing its sharp edges and becoming smooth and rounded from all the abrasion in the streambed. Finally, it comes to rest and is buried by more stones and sand.

Fast-forward a few million years while the stone is buried under more sediments. Minerals percolate through the matrix, and cement the stones and sand together. Add a few more million years and the overlying sediments are washed away, exposing the stone as today's sandstone bluffs. 

Then you come along, pluck the stone out, and toss it in the stream. Here we go again, where will it end up next? Washing down the Ohio to become part of the Mississippi delta?


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## creekcrawler

Thanks, my head just exploded.

I remember that the upper Cuyahoga above Akron is way older (by @10,000 years) than the lower section. The upper Cuyahoga used to flow _south_ at Akron. The lower section formed after the last ice age. That's why the Hoga is so much different at the upper end - flatter with big wide flood plains.


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## FOSR

I want to go visit parts of the Highlands Sanctuary south of Columbus. From what I know it's not sansdtone like in Hocking, it's limestone like the Scioto gorge, but never glaciated so it's far older terrain.

The bedrock layers kind of run in stripes, the Scioto limestone is "Devonian" in this image.










I know a few places where you can see the contact between the top of the limestone, and the younger shale on top.


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## claytonhaske

this thread is awesome......it's like a free history lesson.


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## BuckeyeHunter

FOSR said:


> In riverbanks south of Columbus I've seen microwave-sized boulders in the sediment layers, what kind of flood event moves stones that size?


Its definitely interesting to read about this, I majored in history and have never heard of the Teyas river until today. As for your comment about boulders; I was in Colorado a few years ago as the snow melt was in full swing. We were next to a very swollen river coming down the mountain and you could actually hear washing machine sized boulders bouncing down the riverbed under the water. Its amazing how powerful a river can be.


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## FOSR

These are the boulders I was talking about

http://sciotoriverfriends.org/shared_images/stratified_bank.jpg


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## Smead

Here's some links regarding glacial melt effects:

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/St-Ts/Stream-Erosion-and-Landscape-Development.html





> Potholes in this sandstone streambed were probably formed by the long-term erosive action of swirling, sediment-laden, and pebble-laden water. Much of the pothole development can likely be attributed to the high, turbulent flows of glacial meltwaters. Today, the potholes are only slowly, almost imperceptibly enlarging because the amount of natural streamflow is not sufficient to sustain the formerly accelerated rates of streambed erosion.


An older article with diagrams showing feature developement.

http://www.igsoc.org/journal/1/9/igs_journal_vol01_issue009_pg488-490.pdf



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## Smead

FOSR said:


> These are the boulders I was talking about
> 
> http://sciotoriverfriends.org/shared_images/stratified_bank.jpg


Suspect that it has to be glacial till...martial bulldozed by a advancing glacier.



> Till or glacial till is unsorted glacial sediment. Glacial drift is a general term for the coarsely graded and extremely heterogeneous sediments of glacial origin. Glacial till is that part of glacial drift which was deposited directly by the glacier. It may vary from clays to mixtures of clay, sand, gravel and boulders.


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## Smead

BuckeyeHunter said:


> Its definitely interesting to read about this, I majored in history and have never heard of the Teyas river until today. As for your comment about boulders; I was in Colorado a few years ago as the snow melt was in full swing. We were next to a very swollen river coming down the mountain and you could actually hear washing machine sized boulders bouncing down the riverbed under the water. Its amazing how powerful a river can be.


Big Thompson Canyon Flood...Colorado, 1976.

10+ inches of rain in about 4 hours...confined canyon system.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43825

http://www.coloradoan.com/news/thompson/


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## Smead

FOSR said:


> I've heard as high as the Rockies.
> 
> At places like Hocking Hills or Nelson Ledges, you can find gravels ("conglomorates") in the sandstone. You can dislodge them from the matrix and toss them in the stream.
> 
> So, that stone was first a quartz crystal in granite, in the roots of a mountain chain. The mountains rose and wore away, the granite was exposed, and it weathered to clay leaving behind the quartz crystals. (Quartz is so chemically stable that it never wears away, it just gets ground to sand.)
> 
> How long did that take? Chapter 2: The crystals are washed out of the mountains. That stone traveled from somewhere in modern PA to Ohio, losing its sharp edges and becoming smooth and rounded from all the abrasion in the streambed. Finally, it comes to rest and is buried by more stones and sand.
> 
> Fast-forward a few million years while the stone is buried under more sediments. Minerals percolate through the matrix, and cement the stones and sand together. Add a few more million years and the overlying sediments are washed away, exposing the stone as today's sandstone bluffs.
> 
> Then you come along, pluck the stone out, and toss it in the stream. Here we go again, where will it end up next? Washing down the Ohio to become part of the Mississippi delta?


Even more interesting, the proto-Appalachians were worn down to a flat plain by the end of the Mesozoic, then experienced uplift in the Cenzoic to be re-eroded into their present forms. Makes sense, since they lack the high plains of the Rockies. From historical reading, it seems that the Appalachians were considered to be more difficult to cross than the Rockies.

The Cumberland Gap:



> Cumberland Gap (el. 1600 ft./488 m.) is a pass through the Cumberland Mountains region of the Appalachian Mountains, also known as the Cumberland Water Gap, at the juncture of the U.S. states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. Famous in American history for its role as one key passageway through the lower central Appalachians, it was an important part of the Wilderness Road and is now part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.




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## Smead

FOSR said:


> I want to go visit parts of the Highlands Sanctuary south of Columbus. From what I know it's not sansdtone like in Hocking, it's limestone like the Scioto gorge, but never glaciated so it's far older terrain.
> 
> The bedrock layers kind of run in stripes, the Scioto limestone is "Devonian" in this image.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I know a few places where you can see the contact between the top of the limestone, and the younger shale on top.


I have a portion of streambed that was converted to sedimentary rock...about 8" square...came from behind a house that I lived at in Hinckley in Medina county. I had it looked at by one of the Geology professors at Cleveland State University.


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## Smead

FOSR said:


> I've heard as high as the Rockies.
> 
> At places like Hocking Hills or Nelson Ledges, you can find gravels ("conglomorates") in the sandstone. You can dislodge them from the matrix and toss them in the stream.
> 
> So, that stone was first a quartz crystal in granite, in the roots of a mountain chain. The mountains rose and wore away, the granite was exposed, and it weathered to clay leaving behind the quartz crystals. (Quartz is so chemically stable that it never wears away, it just gets ground to sand.)
> 
> How long did that take? Chapter 2: The crystals are washed out of the mountains. That stone traveled from somewhere in modern PA to Ohio, losing its sharp edges and becoming smooth and rounded from all the abrasion in the streambed. Finally, it comes to rest and is buried by more stones and sand.
> 
> Fast-forward a few million years while the stone is buried under more sediments. Minerals percolate through the matrix, and cement the stones and sand together. Add a few more million years and the overlying sediments are washed away, exposing the stone as today's sandstone bluffs.
> 
> Then you come along, pluck the stone out, and toss it in the stream. Here we go again, where will it end up next? Washing down the Ohio to become part of the Mississippi delta?


Do you remember the Aldo Leopold essay describing the journey of a single atom through the biosphere??


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## Smead

What's neat about all of this is that it began with just thinking about the Scioto River...which I enjoy fishing...which led me to investigate it's history a bit.

I had known some of the diverse information, but what strikes me is the extent of connectivity one realizes is involved.

Interesting to see how drifting continents, ice ages, mountain ranges, dinosaurs, ocean currents can all relate to catching a smallmouth bass!!

Don't have time for it tonight, but next will be how the earth's axial tilt, axial wobble and elliptical orbit have a part to play...and might also determine which color crankbait to offer. 

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm


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## Mushijobah

You're on top of it, Smead! Good info!


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## Smead

But Wait...There's More!! 

Cleveland with an equatorial climate!

http://www.cmnh.org/site/ResearchandCollections/Paleobotany/Research/UpperDevonianClevelandShale.aspx

I'll be darned!



> *Smeadia clevelandensis*, genus and species new, from the Upper Devonian Cleveland Shale of Ohio (the fossil was named in honor of the Smead Family who have been strong supporters of the Paleobotany Department)


Must be the upscale branch of the family...mostly my branch were hung as thieves. 

Probablely tougher than musky:

http://www.cmnh.org/site/AtTheMuseum/OnExhibit/PermanentExhibits/Dunk.aspx



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## FOSR

Some glacial signs are subtle, like the Powell Moraine. You might think this place is flat but at Sawmill Road and Summit View, you can look south to 270 about 50 feet below. You can also notice changes in elevation on Rt. 33 between Columbus and Marysville.


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## percidaeben

Love this stuff smead very interesting look up the area during the Devonian period we are covered by a warm 40ft ocean with all kinds of aquatic creatures swimming about that's what's so cool about this site a lot of smart people that have simular interest and understanding of our fragile ecosystem and envioroment


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## Smead

Ah yes, the Devonian Period...especially important to us here as it is refered to as the "Age of Fishes"! But quite a bit of important developements occured.

My personal favorite though...the trilobite:



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> The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from 416 to 359.2 million years ago (ICS, 2004,[5] chart). It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied.
> 
> During the Devonian Period the pectoral and pelvic fins of lobe-finned fish evolved into legs[6] as they started to walk on land as tetrapods around 397 Ma.[7] Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established.
> 
> The first seed-bearing plants spread across dry land, forming huge forests. In the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and the late Ordovician, and *the first ray finned and lobe-finned bony fish evolved*. The first ammonite mollusks appeared, and trilobites, the mollusc-like brachiopods, as well as great coral reefs were still common. The Late Devonian extinction severely affected marine life.
> 
> The paleogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, and the early formation of the small supercontinent of Euramerica in between.




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## Smead

Here's a cool map showing landmasses at the time and their relation to current continents...sea levels were high obviously.



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## Smead

Probably should have a geologic timeline...this stuff can get confusing!!

Simple:



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A bit more fun:



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## FOSR

I cite Firesign Theatre:



> "We know for certain, for instance, for some reason for some time in the beginning there were hot lumps. Cold and lonely, they whirled noiselessly through the black holes of space. These insignificant lumps came together to form the first union: our Sun, the heating system. And about this glowing gasbag rotated the Earth.
> 
> We were covered with a molten scum of rock, bobbing on the surface like rats. Later, when there was less heat, these giant rock groups settled down among the land masses. During this extinct time, our earth was like a steam room - and no one, not even Man, could get in. However, the oceans and the sewers were simmering with a rich protein stew and the mountains moved in to surround and protect them. They didn't know then that living, as we know it, was already taken over.
> 
> Animals without backbones hid from each other, or fell down. Clambasaurs and oysterettes appeared as appetizers - then came the sponges, which sucked up about 10 percent of all life. Hundreds of years later, in the late Devouring Period, the fish became obnoxious. Trailerbites, Chickerbites, and Mosqwitoes collided aimlessly in the dense gas. Finally, tiny edible plants sprang up in rows - giving birth to generations of insecticides and other small, dying creatures.
> 
> Millions of months passed and, 28 days later, the moon appeared. This small change was reflected best, perhaps, in the sand dollar, which shrank to almost nothing in the bottom of the pool. Where even dumb amphibians like catfish laid their eggs in the boiling waters, only to be gobbled up every 3 minutes by the giant sea orphans (which scared everybody).
> 
> And so, in fear and hot water, Man is born!


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## Smead

Many have heard about the superconinent Pangea, but that was the last one formed only 300 million years ago...there were others:

*Rodinia*



> In geology, Rodinia (from the Russian &#1056;&#1086;&#1076;&#1080;&#1085;a, rodina, meaning "motherland") is the name of a supercontinent, a continent which contained most or all of Earth's landmass. According to plate tectonic reconstructions, Rodinia existed between 1100 and 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era.
> 
> In contrast with Pangaea, the last supercontinent about 300 million years ago, little is known yet about the exact configuration and geodynamic history of Rodinia. Paleomagnetic evidence provides some clues to the paleolatitude of individual pieces of the Earth's crust, but not to their longitude, which geologists have pieced together by comparing similar geologic features, often now widely dispersed.
> 
> The extreme cooling of the global climate around 700 million years ago (the so called Snowball Earth of the Cryogenian period) and the rapid evolution of primitive life during the subsequent Ediacaran and Cambrian periods are often thought to have been triggered by the breaking up of Rodinia.


Looks like there were about 7 of them!!

Snowball Earth seems a bit dire!!



> Snowball Earth refers to the hypothesis that the Earth's surface became nearly or entirely frozen at least once, sometime earlier than 650 million years ago. The geological community generally accepts this hypothesis because it best explains sedimentary deposits generally regarded as of glacial origin at tropical paleolatitudes and other otherwise enigmatic features in the geological record. Opponents to the hypothesis contested the implications of the geological evidence for global glaciation, the geophysical feasibility of an ice- or slush-covered ocean,[2][3] and the difficulty of escaping an all-frozen condition. There are a number of unanswered questions, including whether the Earth was a full snowball, or a "slushball" with a thin equatorial band of open (or seasonally open) water.
> 
> The geological time frames under consideration come before the sudden multiplication of life forms on earth known as the Cambrian explosion and the most recent snowball episode may have triggered the evolution of multi-cellular life on earth. Another, much earlier and longer, snowball episode, the Huronian glaciation (2.4 to 2.1 billion years) may have been triggered by the oxygen catastrophe.


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## Smead

Struck by a simple question...when did the oceans form so that we could have continents drifting about??

3.8 billion years ago!!



> 4 billion years ago, the Earth could be described as a very large, hot rock without a trace of water on its surface. Water on the young Earth came from two sources, outgassing from within the Earth and bombardment by comets. Outgassing is the process whereby gases are released from molten rock in the mantle of the planet by volcanic activity. This was probably the primary source of gases for the early atmosphere. Comets and meterorites also bring with them gases which contributed to the Earth's atmosphere.
> 
> Some of the gases in the new atmosphere were methane (CH3), ammonia (NH3), water vapor (H2O), and carbon dioxide (CO2). The water on Earth stayed in gaseous form until the planet's surface cooled below 100 degrees Celsius. At this time, 3.8 billion years ago, water condensed into rain and poured onto the land. Water collected in low lying areas which gradually became the primitive oceans.


http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/oceans/ocean1.html

I wonder how much the earth looked like the moon before you had liquid water and atmospheric gases to allow weathering??

Speaking of gases...that oxygen catastrophe was a bit problematic for anything evolved to live without it...it was poison to such creatures:



> The Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), also called the oxygen catastrophe or oxygen crisis or Great Oxidation, was the appearance of free oxygen (O2) in Earth's atmosphere. This major environmental change happened around 2,400 million years ago.
> 
> Photosynthesis was producing oxygen both before and after the GOE. The difference was that before the GOE, organic matter and dissolved iron chemically captured any free oxygen. The GOE was the point when these minerals became saturated and could not capture any more oxygen. The excess free oxygen started to accumulate in the atmosphere.
> 
> The rising oxygen levels may have wiped out a huge portion of the Earth's anaerobic inhabitants at the time. From their perspective it was a catastrophe (hence the name). Cyanobacteria were essentially responsible for what was likely the largest extinction event in Earth's history. Additionally the free oxygen combined with atmospheric methane, triggering the Huronian glaciation, possibly the longest snowball Earth episode ever.
> 
> The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere has fluctuated ever since.[1]


So you had liquid surface water at 3.8 billion years ago and free O2 at 2.4 billion years ago.

Life appeared 3.8-3.5 Billion years ago...though there's still arguement about when to call it life.

Early creatures developed from organic soups which even those studying can't agree were really alive or not, or what the determination line or event was.

Eventually, prokaryotes could be found as fossils...at 3.5 billiion years ago...no doubt here as this is basically bacteria.


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## Smead

*Time For Intermission and Frivolity!!

*


FOSR said:


> I cite Firesign Theatre:


SubGenius Material!!

Bob Dobbs approved!!



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The Stark Fist of Jehovah 1



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SLAAK Uber Alles!!

http://www.subgenius.com/


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## FOSR

When Columbus ran the sewer line down from Dublin a few years ago, they were using tunneling machines to bore through the limestone. There was a news item about one of them hitting an ancient buried valley with softer sediments, and it got stuck, and was abandoned. As far as I know it's still down there somewhere.


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## Smead

FOSR said:


> When Columbus ran the sewer line down from Dublin a few years ago, they were using tunneling machines to bore through the limestone. There was a news item about one of them hitting an ancient buried valley with softer sediments, and it got stuck, and was abandoned. As far as I know it's still down there somewhere.


I found this article from 2007 regarding another project...18' diameter bore:

http://www.columbusunderground.com/the-biggest-public-works-project-in-columbus-history

I'd probably really want to get back anything capable of digging that kind of bore.

Meanwhile, the new State admin doesn't want to address farm runoff:



> But in a speech at the Farm Bureau's annual meeting yesterday, Kasich said he doesn't favor imposing regulations on all farmers in the Grand Lake area when only a few might be responsible for the lake's pollution problems.


http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/12/04/copy/pollution-rules-slammed.html?adsec=politics&sid=101


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## FOSR

If you're wondering whether there are many large farms in the Scioto watershed, here's a map of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) locations permitted by OEPA:

http://www.epa.state.oh.us/portals/35/cafo/FacilityLocations_8x14_061308a.pdf

edited to add: maybe I should post that to The Lounge, as it is statewide


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## Smead

That's a lot of poop.

Well, the world was here long before we were and despite the abuses will be here long after we're gone...our choice is deciding how we want things to be during our tenure.

Time is indifferent to us, stone cold indifferent; the planet spins and orbits, the Sun burns...as they have done for billions of years...we aren't much more than bacteria on this world, with the exception that we have awareness.

100 million years from now, something might discover our remnant bits and pieces...and wonder what it was like such a long ago.


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## Smead

More good stuff on the Teays River...pronounced "Taze" it seems, I wasn't sure of the pronounciation myself.

Cool PDF:

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/pdf/GeoFacts/geof10.pdf

Seems that the Teays was about the same size as the Ohio River.

Here's a link to the ODNR's bedrock mapping page...mentioned in the PDF:

http://www.ohiodnr.com/OhioGeologicalSurvey/BedrockMappingActivities/tabid/7138/Default.aspx


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## Smead

A bit on people.

So why is it called Lake Erie?

Not much is known about them really.

*The Erielhonan*



> The Erie (also Erieehronon, Eriechronon, Riquéronon, Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were an Iroquoian precontact and early-historic group of Native Americans, who lived from western New York to northern Ohio on the south shore of Lake Erie. They were destroyed by warfare waged by the Iroquois, based in New York. They adopted some of the survivors into their own tribes, primarily into the Seneca, the nation located in the west of New York..
> 
> The names Erie and Eriez are shortened forms of Erielhonan, meaning "long tail." The Erielhonan were also called the "Cat" or the "Raccoon" people. They lived in multi-family long houses in villages enclosed in palisades. They grew the "Three Sisters": varieties of corn, beans, and squash, during the warm season. In winter, tribal members lived off the stored crops and animals taken in hunts.


Pissed off the Iroquoian Confederacy one two many times and steps were taken!!



> Erie is a short form of the Iroquian word "Erielhonan" meaning literally "long tail"" and referring to the panther (cougar or mountain lion). Hence their French name was Nation du Chat (cat nation). Their other Iroquoian names - Awenrehronon and Rhilerrhonon (Rhierrhonon) - carry the same meaning, although the Huron muddied the situation by using Yenresh (panther people) for both the Erie and Neutrals. Other names which seem to have been used for the Erie were: Atirhagenret, Chat (French), Gaquagaono, Kahqua (Kahkwa) (Seneca), Rhagenratka, and Black Mingua (Dutch).


http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/nativeamericans/erie.htm

http://www.essortment.com/all/erienativeamer_rjoi.htm


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## Smead

The Eastern Indians version of the 30 Years War:

*The Beaver Wars*



> The Beaver Wars, also called the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, commonly refer to a series of conflicts fought in the mid-17th century in eastern North America. Encouraged and armed by their Dutch and English trading partners, the Iroquois sought to expand their territory and monopolize the fur trade and the trade between European markets and the tribes of the western Great Lakes region. The conflict pitted the nations of the Iroquois Confederation, led by the dominant Mohawk, against the French-backed and largely Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Great Lakes region.
> 
> The wars were brutal and are considered one of the bloodiest series of conflicts in the history of North America. As the Iroquois succeeded in the war and enlarged their territory, they realigned the tribal geography of North America, and destroyed several large tribal confederaciesincluding the Huron, Neutral, Erie, and Susquehannockand pushed some eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River, or southward into the Carolinas. The Iroquois also controlled the Ohio Valley lands as hunting ground, from about 1670 onward, as far as can be determined from contemporary French (Jesuit) accounts. The Ohio Country and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were virtually emptied of Native people as refugees fled westward to escape Iroquois warriors. (Much of this region was later repopulated by Native peoples nominally subjected to the Six Nations; see Mingo)
> 
> Both Algonquian and Iroquoian societies were greatly disturbed by these wars. The conflict subsided with the loss by the Iroquois of their Dutch allies in the New Netherland colony, and with a growing French objective to gain the Iroquois as an ally against English encroachment. After the Iroquois became trading partners with the English, their alliance was a crucial component of the later British expansion. They used the Iroquois conquests as a claim to the old Northwest.


http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=483

http://rfester.tripod.com/iroq.html

http://www.familyhistory101.com/military/1642-1698.html


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## FOSR

There is a ravine near Dublin with a few small caves. I read a research paper about a dig conducted there, they brought out human and dog bones (not many bones of other animals). Many of the bones had been broken before being thrown in the caves.

I can't help wondering, was that some burial ceremony, or was it a massacre?

I wonder about places like that ravine, or Hayden Falls, or Indian Run, were they someone's exclusive territoy? Or sacred shared places? I'll bet each one had its own name.

Where 270 crosses the Scioto in Dublin, Emerald Parkway currently dead-ends into a hillside. They will run it up the hill alongside 270 toward Sawmill:

http://www.thisweeknews.com/live/content/dublin/stories/2010/11/03/Extension-brings-concerns.html

http://www.dublin.oh.us/engineering/emerald/eight.php

Unfortunately it looks like it's going to go right over an archaeological site where stone tools and arrowheads were made. At least they're protecting the land around some earthworks next to Bright Road, known as the Holder-Wright Earthworks

http://wikimapia.org/9859523/Holder-Wright-Earthworks

http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...10/01/holder.ART_ART_10-01-07_B4_C382FR6.html

It must have been a place of some significance.


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## FOSR

This is the historical marker in that tiny park off 33 at Lane Rd.


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## Smead

Indian presence in Ohio is somewhat confusing because there's conflicting information regarding what tribes were here before white settlement and the Iroquois Wars forced dislocations to the west...afterwards, a lot of tribes that were known, but were relatively recent arrivals.

Data from the 1500's is just about nonexistent for example, even the early 1600's seems to be very sketchy...Jesuit reports, some French and Dutch contacts.

Found this:



> The Jesuit influence in northern North America was significant. The first French missionaries arrived in 1625, and a steady stream followed in later years. Known to native peoples as the Black Robes, the Jesuits concentrated their efforts on the dominant Huron, who probably numbered more than 30,000 at the time. Lesser attention was paid to the Iroquois.
> 
> The fastidious record-keeping habits of the early Jesuits have preserved a valuable record of events in New France. A highly detailed catalog of customs, language and beliefs of the Huron was assembled from the priests&#8217; reports and later published in Jesuit Relations. Much of what is known today about the history, ethnology, and natural science of the area stems the writings of the Jesuits.


http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1145.html


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## FOSR

How about a French expeditionary force sent down the Ohio River to reinforce French claims to the Ohio country? Only 54 years before Ohio became a state, Celeron de Bienville with 250 soldiers buried lead plates claiming the land for France. The Shawnee were set to massacre them at the mouth of the Scioto.

[ame="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Celeron+de+Bienville&aq=f&aqi=g-v1g-sv1g-v1&aql=f&oq=&gs_rfai="]Celeron de Bienville - Google Search[/ame]



> Translation: "In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the 15th, King of France, we Céloron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Galissoniere, Governor General of New France, to reestablish tranquility in some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried this Plate of Lead at the confluence of the Ohio and the Chatauqua, this 29th day of July, near the river Ohio, otherwise Belle Riviere, as a monument of the renewal of the possession we have taken of the said river Ohio and of all those which empty into it, and of all the lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as enjoyed or ought to have been enjoyed by the kings of France preceding and as they have there maintained themselves by arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle.".


So that's it, we all have to wear berets. The original French has Oyo for Ohio, and there's Oyo vodka made in Columbus now, I wonder if there's a connection.

There's a funny part in the travel journal describing how the expedition would meet with Native American villages, exchange greetings and gifts ("calumets") and all the while the Canadian boatmen would be waiting impatiently for the part when they all finally get to smoke the pipe. 

:good:


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## Smead

Tobacco was a pricey treat!!

I guess no wonder that the two sides were shooting at each other by 1756...though the English and French hardly needed an excuse to go to war with each other regularly...shows how serious the German threat was was after 1870 though...the French and English were as tight as Gomez and Fester after that.


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## FOSR

It's strange, in school the French and Indian war was about as boring as anything. But Ohio was the proxy territory for a war between England and France, and there was blood on the ground right here. This was a wild territory with fierce natives supported by overseas interests - does any of this sound like Afghanistan today?

I read some more about that French expedition, part of the purpose was to maintain French control between French Canada and French Louisiana. They planned to have a series of forts along the Ohio to keep the English (and their traders) out.

Remember the movie The Patriot, with Tavington as the bad guy?

http://www.moviesoundclips.net/movies1/thepatriot/ohio.wav


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## Smead

You have to go back to Louis XIV assuming the throne of France in the 1600's to understand the conflict properly...even further back to Richielieu really...but Louis XIV lived a long time and essentially attempted to dominate Europe during his tenure. As late as the mid 1600's it had to be pointed out to political leaders in England that Spain was no longer the threat from the Armada days, the new menace was France...after that it was game on.

Then combine the struggle in Europe, basically a series of alliances against Louis, with expansion into the new world for wealth and power...mercantilism also necessitated having colonies for the economics to work.

By the time of Louis XIV's death, France had been beaten back, but had the resources for a resurgence in the mid 1700's.

The 7 Year's War, of which the French and Indian War here in North America was an important aspect, was indeed a world war...France lost big...to include India and North America...which was why they were willing to assist us against England during the Revolution.


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## Smead

For anyone who liked the maps of continental drift, here's a link that shows global views in all of the geologic periods:

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/globaltext.html

Neat Animation...just refresh the page to replay it.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/anim1.html

More...when loaded, left click and hold your mouse cusor over the image while moving left to right to get the animation to move:

http://www.scotese.com/pangeanim.htm


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## Smead

And into the future!!

http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm



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## FOSR

Some excerpts from an article by local historian Ed Lentz, here:

http://www.thisweeknews.com/live/content/dublin/stories/2010/03/31/0331dulentz_ln.html



> Passing through what is now downtown Columbus, the Scioto River in the late 1790s was considerably narrower and much deeper than it is today, and dotted with sandbars and occasional islands...
> 
> ...Sullivant was surveying parts of a tract of land known as the Virginia Military District on the west side of the Scioto. The land to the east was reserved for settlers from Nova Scotia and was called the Refugee Tract. It would lay empty of major settlement for a number of years...
> 
> ...In the early days, people spent much of their time along the river. It was a place to swim, to fish and to find a nice place to spend a little quiet time.
> 
> It also was a place to have a party from time to time. The numerous islands in and along the river provided an easily accessible venue for people to have a little fun away from the hustle and bustle of Columbus. Some of the people seeking privacy on the islands were simply looking for a nice place away from it all...
> 
> ...Farther up the Scioto, past its junction with Whetstone Creek (later called the Olentangy River), was British Island. That island was used during the War of 1812 as an impromptu prison camp for British soldiers captured in the conflict.
> 
> It was not a happy place. The island was prone to partial immersion during flood season and many of the soldiers simply wanted to be any other place than on the island. Some tried to escape and were successful. Others were less fortunate and took up permanent residence in shallow graves on the island.
> 
> Closer to town was an island variously called Brickell Island, Willow Island or Bloody Island. It acquired its first name from its owner, pioneer settler John Brickell. It was sometimes called Willow Island for the willow trees that grew there. Its final name had a varied history.
> 
> One story said the island acquired the name in the 1840s when two young men were seeking the attention of the same woman and decided to settle their differences with a duel on the island. Since the duel was conducted with pistols containing no bullets, no one got hurt and the island acquired its name as a joke.
> 
> But there is another reason that particular sandbar was called Bloody Island. In 1774, outraged at the murder of his family, the Mingo warrior called Logan by white settlers rose with a large number of followers and began to attack settlements along the Ohio River.
> 
> Partly to deal with this problem and partly to divert attention from taxation protests, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, marched into Ohio with a large army. Camping near Circleville, he sent Col. William Crawford and several hundred horsemen to raid the camp at the Forks of the Scioto where the Arena District is today...
> 
> ...Every single one of these islands in the Scioto is gone now. After more than a century of flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers came to Columbus after the Great Flood of 1913 and helped widen the Scioto to twice its previous width. Any remaining evidence of the islands of downtown Columbus vanished then.


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## FOSR

Then, what about this Virginia Military District?

If you look at a map of Ohio, some boundaries and roads are in a grid, but not west and south of the Scioto.

(patched together from a few sources)



> In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Virginia Military District was an early land division in what would eventually become Ohio.
> 
> After the American Revolution, Virginia gave up most of its claims to western lands before the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. However, the state kept an area of land in the Northwest Territory called the Virginia Military District. This territory was bordered by the Ohio River on the south, the Little Miami River to the west, and the Scioto River on the east and north. The state used these lands as payment to Virginia's Revolutionary War veterans. The first settlement in the Virginia Military District was Massie's Station, which was founded in 1890. The village of Chillicothe was founded quite early as well. Many Virginians settled in the area. In some cases, newcomers gave up their slaves in order to move to Ohio since the Northwest Ordinance did not allow slavery in the territory. George Washington was eligible to receive land in the district but never applied for a land patent.
> 
> Virginia eventually gave back to the United States government any lands that had not been claimed by veterans. The federal government then gave the land to the State of Ohio. In 1872, the Ohio legislature used the income from this land to create an endowment for The Ohio State University.





> Ohio's land history is an unusual patchwork, deriving from its location to the immediate west of the safely settled (and newly free) states. Virginia was the original 'owner' of the Ohio lands (as well as those of other states in the midwest). But there were overlapping claims, particularly from Connecticut, which extended its bounding latitudes through New York and Pennsylvania into the Ohio territory and westward.
> 
> Thomas Jefferson, remarkably forward thinking and always the expansionist, proposed in 1784 a plan for carving out new states in the vast territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Part of the proposal dealt with the radical idea of surveying the land into square tracts. The appeal of this idea was to eliminate the numerous legal battles caused by overlapping claims, common in the states that used the metes and bounds surveying system. Jefferson's proposal was modified through the legislative process and eventually turned into the Land Ordinance of 1785.
> 
> Through this measure Ohio became the experimental site of the new public land surveying and sale system. But it was muddied by prior claims from Virginia and Connecticut, and the need to set aside lands for Revolutionary War claims. So, a number of different surveying systems were employed and a variety of speculators, military bounty claimants, and individuals acquired lands in the Ohio Territory. The mistakes that were made and the lessons that were learned culminated in the Land Ordinance of 1796 which laid out the surveying and numbering scheme used for all remaining public lands. Successive additions to U.S. lands, starting with Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803, enlarged the area that came under the 1796 ordinance. Today 30 states use this system.





> What distinguishes the VMD from the rest of Ohio (and the rest of the Northwest Territory) is that this is the only large portion of the state to be survyed using the ancient metes and bounds system used in colonial Virginia and Kentucky. All the other large surveys in Ohio used rectangular coordinate systems. Since metes and bounds used natural landmarks to establish corners the result was an irregular system of land subdivision, with eventually was manifested on the landscape via woodlots, fence lines, and road alginments.


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## FOSR

Here's a map of the VMD, with the Congress Lands on the east side of the Scioto.


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## Smead

I'm more familiar with the Connecticut claims up north, the Western Reserve and the Firelands...I hadn't realized that the Virginia claims were that formalized.

As an aside...one of the few actions of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787...which was honored thereafter under the Constitution of the Republic of the United States.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/northwest.html


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## FOSR

The 1880s Delaware County history tells of timber cutters making rafts of logs and riding them down the river when the water was up, to sell them, probably in Columbus. Imagine having that job.


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## Smead

Imagine the shock if one of the early settlers could see Ohio 200+ years later.


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## FOSR

The late Emmet Conway Was a southern Ohio historian who went by the name The Olde Forester. His site is still up, with a lot of information, it's a good thing it didn't all go with him.

So, how about a series of smoke signal bowls to convey messages along the Scioto valley?



> The Scioto River makes three big loops south of Richmondale and picks up Big Salt Creek on the third loop about a mile south of the highway.
> 
> The loops, plainly visible on the topographic map, mark the exact location of the robbery of the north-running preglacial Teays River by the new south-running valley we call the Scioto River. The Teays flowed northward through present Richmondale to Vigo and Londonderry leaving its borders plainly designating good farm land from hill woodlands. The SIGNAL BOWLS on the Weddington Ridge bluff look down on this geological conflict of continental proportions. Imagine being there when the present Ohio River Valley broke through it's icy dam to drain Lake Tight at our feet.


Much more here:

http://www.oldeforester.com/sigbo.html


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## Smead

Using Bing maps, I could see what he was talking about:

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?q=&mkt=en-US&FORM=BYFD#JnE9LnJpY2htb25kYWxlJTJjK29oaW8lN2Vzc3QuMCU3ZXBnLjEmYmI9NTcuNjE5ODU3MTQ2MjI2NyU3ZS0yOC4yNjUxNDQzNDglN2UxNi41Njk0MTA1MDgxOTE2JTdlLTEzNy43NzY4NjMwOTg=

Give the link a second and it will go from the US map to Richmond Dale, ohio.


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## creekcrawler

I've had the opportunity to have some e-mails with good old Emmett Conway about some archaeoligcal things I found up north here.
He was a great guy and he definitely knew his history of the area.


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## FOSR

I also got to swap messages with Emmet, he was a wealth of knowledge. I'm pretty sure his son is keeping the site up, but maybe I should go through and copy everything in case it goes down someday.

It's funny to read him griping about the way the roads were run, when the bison and the Indians ran "high, level and direct" from point to point.


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## Smead

The mastodon at the Ohio Historical Center:

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/12/18/mastodon-to-be-moved-gently-and-in-pieces.html?sid=101



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## FOSR

Strange to imagine things like that were ripping branches off of honey locust trees right here, only 10,000 years ago. Talk about a browse line...


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## Smead

I remember as a kid thinking how their skulls looked like Jimmy Durante...I may be giving away my age here.


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