May, 1908.] Stream Diversion near Lakeville, Ohio, 35 r 



I want to examine it as to fact and nature of evidence, and thus 

 discover the cause, treating it as illustrating a method of re- 

 search rather than as telling of a new kind of phenomenon. 



The region is that of the head waters of the Mohican, a stream 

 which unites with Owl Creek to form the Walhonding, which 

 in turn unites with Killbuck Creek and enters the Tuscarawas 

 at Coshocton. The critical places in the case are in southern 

 Ashland County and western Holmes County. 



The Mohican Creek proper is made up of the waters of sev- 

 eral smaller creeks, Muddy or Lake Fork from the northeast 

 which also brings the waters of Jerome Fork, Black Fork from 

 the nothwest, and Clear Fork from the west, which joins Black 

 Fork just above the narrows at Uncas and Spellac}^ 



Black Fork comes down from north of Mansfield in a post- 

 glacial valley hitting the rocks occasionally and then leaping 

 over falls and rapids or winding through gorges. Fleming's 

 falls and gorge above Miflin furnish a good example of this habit. 

 But just before entering Ashland County above Perrysville, 

 Black Fork enters a broad, mature, rock valley, more or less 

 plugged w4th moraine of Wisconsin age and pursues it to Lou- 

 donville. Here it abruptly turns into the south wall of the big 

 valley and winds through a six or seven mile gorge into Knox 

 County, where it joins the Muddy Fork and the two constitute 

 the Mohican. 



In like manner Jerome Fork heads in post-glacial valleys in 

 the drift of northeastern Ashland County, but before joining 

 Muddy Fork at the town of Lakefork it finds itself in a broad, 

 open, mature, rock valley leading southeast. At Lakefork, 

 having entered Mudd}^ Fork, its waters turn abruptly into the 

 hills and lead southward into a rapidly narrowing valley. The 

 narrowest part is found about midway between Lakefork and 

 Lakeville where the stream seems to have cut a notch in a low 

 mature divide. Below this place, the valley widens southward 

 and emerges into the very broad mature valley, which Black 

 Fork followed seven or eight miles; and the stream, turning 

 westward in the large valley, winds about among morainic hills 

 for some two miles, then turns again into a hill-enclosed nar- 

 rowing valley and follows it southward through two morainic 

 loops, and on southward to the Mohican, which is said to flow 

 through a narrow valley in a very hilly country. The author 

 has not seen this portion of the Mohican. 



A sluggish little branch of Muddy Fork rising among a series 

 of morainic loops northeast of Big Prairie flows through a broad 

 clay -bottomed, level-floored valley for five or six miles and en- 

 ters the Muddy just before the latter goes into the hills at Lake- 

 fork. 



