May, 1912.] A Study of Buckeye Lake and Vicinity, 519 



till devoid of boulders and composed largely of clay is easily 

 transported by streams and readily lends itself to delta fomiation. 

 This is well shown by the relatively extensive deltas built by several 

 small streams flowing into Buckeye Lake. One of these called the 

 Southwest Feeder, a distributary from the Licking River, 

 near Kirkersville, flows across the plain in a southerly direction and 

 enters Buckeye Lake just north of Millersport. The Feeder dates 

 from the completion of the Reservoir in 1S32 and is therefore 80 

 years old. In this time it built a delta approximately 200 feet 

 long. A dense mat of pond plants has so blocked the outlet that 

 but little water is received by the lake from this source during 

 periods of ordinarily dry weather. 



The mouth of Buckeye creek, one of the largest tributaries to 

 Buckeye Lake from the south, is so shallow and so choked with 

 aquatic and marsh plants that it is obliterated during the summer 

 months. The same condition would prevail at Honey creek, 

 another tributary from the south, if the channel were not dredged 

 and thus kept open. 



Streams dating from the recession of the Wisconsin ice must 

 have built deltas so extensive, that they would be readily recog- 

 nizable. Moreover, there cannot have been an extensive post 

 Wisconsin lake of long duration if we accept Mr. Mather's'' con- 

 clusion as to the age of the gorge of the Licking River at the 

 Licking Narrows. From his study of this gorge Mr. Mather 

 concludes that it antedates the Wicsonsin ice age. If this can be 

 accepted, a post Wisconsin lake would have been drained by the 

 eastward flowing Licking River, for this outlet is broad and 

 deep enough to have prevented the retention of a large body of 

 water to the west at the fort of the glacier. 



It seems to me that all the positive and negative evidence 

 which the region affords precludes the possibility of the existence 

 of a large post Wisconsin lake or anything more than a temporary 

 and shallow body of water which would naturally result from the 

 melting of an extensive ice sheet. 



What is the evidence for or against the existence of a large 

 interglacial lake in the region under discussion? Such a lake if 

 formed by the recession of the Illinoian ice sheet, must have extended 

 20 miles from north to south and 20 or more miles from east to 

 west and with its bed at least as deeply excavated as the streams 

 which entered it. The record of a gas well in the Raccoon creek 

 valley, just before it suddenly widens to join the broad plain west 

 of Newark and f of a mile north of the crossing of the creek b}^ 

 the Ohio Electric railway, shows that the rock has been excavated 

 to a depth of 453 feet below the present surface. This well marks 

 the greatest depth in an old \'alley whose stream would have been 



6. Mather, K. F. Age of Licking Narrows. Bull. Den. Univ. U: 174-187. 1908, '09. 



