Paint creek washes the base of the hill upon the left, and has for some distance worn away the argillaceous slate rock, so as to leave a mural front of from fifty to seventy-five feet in height. It has also uncovered a range of «septaria», occurring near the base of the slate stratum; a number of which, of large size, are to be seen in the bed of the creek, at «a». These, most unaccountably, have been mistaken for works of art,—“stone covers” for deep wells sunk in the rock. This notion has been gravely advanced in print; and the humble septaria, promoted to a high standing amongst the antiquities of America, now figure prominently in every work of speculations on the subject. The reason for sinking wells in the bed of a creek, was probably never very obvious to any mind. The supposed “wells” are simple casts of huge septaria, which have been dislodged from their beds; the cyclopean “covers” are septaria which have resisted the disintegrating action of the water, and still retain their places. Parallel ranges of these singular natural productions run through the slate strata of this region: they are of an oblate-spheroidal figure, some of them measuring from nine to twelve feet in circumference. They frequently have apertures or hollows in their middle, with radiating fissures, filled with crystalline spar or sulphate of baryta. These fissures sometimes extend beyond them, in the slate rock, constituting the “good joints” mentioned by some writers. The slate layers are not interrupted by these productions, but are bent or wrapped around them. The following cut illustrates their character. A is a vertical section: «a» exhibiting the water, «b» the rock. At «c» the septarium has disintegrated, or has been removed, and its cavity or bed is filled with pebbles. At «d» the nodule still remains. B exhibits the appearance presented by «d» from above.
A stone work, somewhat similar in character to that here described, exists near the town of Somerset, Perry county, Ohio. It is described by Mr. Atwater in the Archæologia Americana, vol. i. p. 131. [p014]
Still another, of small size and irregular outline, is situated on Beaver creek, a branch of the Great Kenhawa, in Fayette county, Virginia, of which an account was published by Mr. I. Craig of Pittsburgh, in the “American Pioneer,” vol. i. p. 199.