GEOLOGY OF MERCER COUNTY.



Dix river and on the Kentucky river are views which rival, if
they do not surpass, those of many world-famed localities.
Great walls of massive rocks reach high above the narrow
valleys, rent apart by the forces which elevated them from
an immense depth. They are marked by fractures, and fash-
ioned by time into many imitative forms. Giant chimneys,
castellated ruins, odd faces, and many o:her pictures grow
into form, as fancy leads the eye among fractured stones,
stained by ages and shaded with shrub and vine.
  From the high escarpments one may look down upon the
flowing river, shaded with hoary sycamores and drooping
maples, or he may look across into small inaccessible caves,
where swallows and vultures build their nests, and bats in
slumber pass the day. From among those cliffs come forth
the purest. sweetest waters, which bubble over strange moss-
covered stones, and around which rare flowers shed their per-
fumes. Every succeeding year brings an increased number
of visitors to High Bridge and to Pleasant Hill, the village
of the Shakers. They come to see the picturesque views
near those points; but up and down the river are many more
which are hardly known save to the local fisherman who has
an eye for beauty, or to the strolling naturalist, who accident-
ally falls upon them in his tramps.

               PALAIEOZOIC GEOLOGY.
  The bedded rocks which are exposed to investigation in
Mercer county are about eight hundred feet in thickness, and
are the same that are seen across Dix river, in the lower part
of Garrard county. They are not cut to such depth in the
gorge of Dix river as those seen at Cooper's branch, on the
Kentucky river, as mentioned in the Report on Garrard.
  All the beds in the county belong to the Lower Silurian
Age. Beginning at a depth of two hundred and twenty-five
feet in the Chazy Group, they extend to and include half of
the Middle Hudson River beds. The following section illus-
trates the divisions, with their position and thickness:



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