Geological

Geology teaches that all that is now dry land was once submerged beneath the ocean, which, like the land, its inequalities, its hills, its valleys, its mountain ranges. Islands are but the tops of submerged mountains, and some of the sea mountains are steeper and more abrupt than any on the land. In the British channel within ten miles the depth changes from 600 to 10,000 feet. at the close of the Carboniferous period, a great upheaval formed a line of land across the southern part of Michigan, which extended to the older adn wider formation in southern Ohio. The land now comprising this and the adjoining counties was still submerged, but the belt rose higher and higher, extending northward and westward until the era of coal deposits, at the close of which Oceana and its sister counties formed the highlands of southern Michigan. It is thought that Lake Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario did not then exist, their place being supplied by a great river, with here and there expansions. Then began the Mesozoic age, characterized ny immense activity of animal and vegetable life, myriads of insects crawling in the rivers. This era is known only by its fossils. The Tertiary age succeeded with its rank vegetation, and mighty mammoths and mastodons roamed over the earth. Then came a change of scene - the ice age buries animal and vegetable. Perhaps thousands of years elapsed before God removed the earth from the embrace of the ice king. At last Spring came, a sea of ice a mile in thickness was dissolved, and the rocks which it held dropped down as rocky fragments or drift. The countless currents which sprang into existence and formed for themselves channels, were the chief agency in forming the stratum as modified drifts. Prof. Winchell's theory is that at this time the whole state was submerged, and one great lake existed from the Falls of Niagara to Chicago. At all events, from Saginaw Bay to Lake Michigan a great valley, deep and wide, extended. South of this line, barriers existed to the flow of waters and accumulation of ice and a second ice period resulted in the formation of another glacial field not over four feet in thickness. Millions of cubic feet of ice water were added to the lakes, resulting in bursting asunder their green coating of ice, carrying with them their tables of limestone, and as the waters fell, depositing them where they lie to-day. As the Niagara rock was worn down, the rushing waters made for themselves deeper channels, and the inland lakes became proportionately l;ower. The present river system was then laid out by nature. All Michigan, except an oval formation in the interior, with Lansing as center, and a diameter of about 100 miles, is regarded by Prof. Hitchcock, of Dartmouth, as belionging to the Devonian, or Lower Carboniferous formation, which is the middle stratum of the Paleozoic era. In fact, all Michigan can be classed as Paleozoic, the oldest formation being of the first stratum, or Silurian, which is confined to the Upper Peninsula. The Lower Peninsula, with the exception of the portion above mentioned, ranks next below in formation, being Devonian, or Lower Carboniferous, and the central portion is still later, being the third or highest division of the Carboniferous, or Permo-carboniferous. The Devonian, of which Oceana consists, is termed by many American geoligists the Erian formation. In this age there was a great advance over the Silurian; terrestrial plants, weeds, rushes and trees made their appearance in great numbers; also ganoid fishes, like enormous sharks. No evidence of vertebrate life has been here above that of fishes. If the Silurian is the age of trilobites, the Devonian is that of fishes - not, certainly, those of the present, but more nearly resembling our sturgeons, gars, sharks and chimeras. Oceana County has a singular formation to the west, at Little Point Au Sable, by which it extends out thirteen miles further west than the mouth of the Grand River, and even in the county itself this point is nearly six miles further west than the extreme southwestern portion. This as we have before said, gives it a semi-peninsular position, and affects the climate favorably for fruit. How this came to be formed, is a question for geologists to speculate upon. It may be that this formation has been formed by the ceaseless action of the prevailing winds and currents from the south and west, meeting the heavy clay formations in Claybanks and being turned sharply out to the west, and then being deflected to the northeast again by counter currents on the west side; thus causing a formation in the form of a semi=circle. The high ground at Little Point Au Sable is about 180 feet above the lake. Again, another singular formation of Oceana, in common with all the rest of Western Michigan, is the high sand ridges, blown up on shores, sometimes 200 feet high, - sometimes bare and glistening sand heaps, at other times crowned with a growth, chiefly of pine and hemlock. As at Pentwater, so at Stony Creek, Grand Haven, Muskegon, White Lake and other places, the mouths of rivers are blocked up, lakes are formed with their first mouths pointing in a tortuous course to the northwest. These have in most cases been straightened to channels due west. These lakes at the mouths of rivers are invaluable as town sites, where sawmills can be erected, and logs boomed down the rivers. ROUND STONES. Among the archeological wonders found in this county, may be mentioned the round stones, which are evidently the work of an early race of men; the purpose for which they were made being purely conjectural. They are of various sizes, but are all as if turned in a lathe, the grain of the stone running in an opposite direction to the turning. They are liable to cleavage in the centre. They are found in many parts; we have seen them in Elbridge, Golden and other townships. They may have been "medicine stones," or possibly for bruising corn. ANCIENT PITS. In Golden we observed a number of curiously arranged pits or depressions, now not much over one or two feet in depth, which were probably intended, like our modern rifle pits, for defensive purposes. That they are very ancient, is evident from the fact of large pines growing in some of the pits. they are not arranged in an arc, or even diagonally, but still, however irregular they may seem, evidently with a view to skillful defence. Those that we saw were on Section 15, but they exist in other parts of the town. BEAVER MEADOWS. In 1860, when Mr. Sayles came to the county, he says the beaver were very plentiful, and could be seen busily engaged in constructing dams, and that the Indians brought in many skins. Today they have vanished, and the only evidence of their presence is here and there a beautiful meadow, in which wild grass grows abundantly. On Section 36, of Colfax, Mr. Sayles owns one of these of 100 acres in extent, on which he cuts annually from fifty to seventy-five tons of hay, which is now worth about half the price of cultivated hay. Formerly, however, the lumbermen were glad to pay a high price for wild hay. Alonzo Yates has anothe large beaver meadow in Colfax. Graham Scott, clerk of Leavitt, has a meadow on Section 10, of Leavitt. There are also two large meadows in Hart; one on Section 18, and another on Section 8, where the dam and stakes are yet visible.