Ohio History Journal

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Editorialana

Editorialana.                       109

 

Marietta could not have been surpassed. The place and time of the

next annual meeting was left in the hands of the Executive Committee.

The proceedings in full of the meetings above, including addresses, etc.,

will be published either in a later number of The Ohio State Archaeo-

logical and Historical Society Quarterly or in a separate publication by

the same Society.

 

 

PALEOLITHIC MAN IN THE WESTERN RESERVE.

[The following article was written by P. P. Cherry and published

in the Wadsworth Banner, February 9, 1908. We deem it of sufficient

interest and importance to reproduce in this Quarterly.-EDITOR.]

Near the highest land in the state of Ohio, near the great water-

shed, has been found evidences of the existence of human life during the

ice age in America.

Southern Western Reserve in itself is a veritable wonderland to

the scientific man, the antiquarian, the geologist and the student. Here is

to be found the inland lake region of Ohio with its some 60 odd fresh-

water, inland, glacial lakes whose bottoms are far below the level of

Lake Erie's deepest depths. These lakes were ground out by immense

glaciers from one-half to a mile in depth. The wash of thousands of

years, from neighboring hillsides, have but served partly to fill up these

ice-plowed grooves.

Commencing at the present site of Akron and extending to within

14 miles of Lake Erie, was a large glacial lake containing an area of 55

miles. From the southwest end of this lake a wide river ran south-

wardly through Summit lake, and entered the Tuscarawas river on its

way to the gulf. Summit lake today lies 396 feet above Lake Erie and

empties its waters therein.

The rock bottom of the old Cuyahoga channel lies 200 feet below

its present muddy bottom.

When we consider that Lake Erie's average depth is not over 200

feet we realize that that body of water did not, could not exist in those

days. It was probably at that time a wide and fertile valley with a

stream running through it which emptied into the Tuscarawas.

With the recent discoveries of Dr. Metz at Madisonville, W. C.

Mills in the Tuscarawas valley, and Prof. G Frederick Wright in Wads-

worth, it has been fully established that man did exist in Ohio during

the ice age; not only in the southern part of the state, but in the Western

Reserve as well.

For several years, Capt. T. D. Wolbach had in his collection what

he believed to be a paleolith from the ice age. Placing himself in com-

munication with Prof. G. Frederick Wright, who occupies the chair of

Geology in Oberlin College, member of the U. S. Geological survey, and

author of the "Ice Age in America," who is probably the greatest living