THE CINCINNATI ICE DAM, 193 



suburban liomes, forced the water of the Ohio southward, over 

 the watershed of the Licking, possibly into what is now the Ken- 

 tucky River gorge. This course was pursued for an indefinite 

 period ; but, when the ice had retired, the river returned to its 

 own channel near Cincinnati. Finding, however, its outlet to the 

 north choked by debris of the glacier, and the former barrier of land 

 between Price Hill and the mouth of the Licking lowered or cut 

 away, it followed the line of drainage it holds at the present time. 



" If the eye of savage man gazed upon the site of Cincinnati 

 before the age of ice, he beheld a vastly different scene from what 

 he would behold now. Standing on the highest point of Mount 

 Auburn [Walnut Hills], he looked south over a deep, rocky 

 gorge, through which rolled the mighty Ohio. On the west was 

 the rocky shore of Price Hill extending in an unbroken line north 

 and south to Kentucky. The Licking River entered as a tribu- 

 tary here. On the east was another waste of water rolling its 

 dark tide northward, and joining the western branch beyond the 

 hills of Clifton. No broad expanse of valley nor of rolling plain 

 lay beneath him ; no city was there, teeming with life and hum- 

 ming with industry ; no railroad trains were panting and puffing, 

 holding their way toward sites of unknown towns. But the 

 water swiftly, with sullen roar re-echoing from cliff to cliff', pur- 

 sued its journey toward its unknown grave. No steamer plowed 

 its waters, but dugout or canoe probably carried primitive man 

 from camp to camp or shore to shore. Where once the imagi- 

 nary savage stood are now jjalatial mansions. Where once the 

 waters spread their turbid tide is now a busy city of four hun- 

 dred thousand people. The water which was once cleft only by 

 the prow of frail canoe is now a highway for many floating 

 palaces. Where once the stream pursued its northward course, 

 the iron horse carries thousands daily to and from their homes in 

 the wide and fertile Mill Creek Valley. Never would all this 

 have been had not the Glacial period wrought its wondrous 

 change. But the ice filled the valley and forced the river from 

 its course. When permitted to return, the ancient channel was 

 so filled with debris that a new one must be cut out, leaving the 

 old one to 1)e utilized by man as a way for his iron servant and as 

 a place whereon to build his cities." * 



An inspection of the general map (Map I) will show that this 

 ancient deflection of the Ohio by way of Hamilton is in analogy 

 with the course of the river in many other i)laces, as at Beaver, 

 Pa., and below Marietta, Ohio, and that Prof. James's discovery 

 of the buried channel, showing the ancient deflection by way of 



* Journal of the Cincinuati Society of Natural History, July -October, 1888, pp. 

 100, 101. 



VOL. XLV. 15 



