A place on the glacial till

by Thomas Fairchild Sherman

In A Place on the Glacial Till, Thomas Fairchild Sherman writes about the history of the life and land around his long-time home in Oberlin, Ohio, offering a quiet message that speaks to us wherever we are: that all time and nature abide within the rocks and soil, with connections, beauty, and meaning as deep as history and as broad as human understanding. The area surrounding Oberlin has a rich and varied past, and Sherman weaves together old and new findings from geology, archeology, and ecology to remind us of its elemental roots. Over the millennia this region of north central Ohio has been a barren, glacier-covered land mass; a sea bed teeming with marine life; the homeland of Adena, Hopewell, and Erie peoples; a part of the Connecticut Western Reserve; and the home of a small, distinguished college dedicated to music and the arts and sciences. The land today holds all the wildernesses of its past, and all the dreams and aspirations of those who have lived upon it. Reminiscent of