392 Frank Carney 



many of which have been worked out ; some of them form parts 

 of the present drainage lines. Several rivers which enter Lake 

 Erie flow across buried valleys; at the place of intersection, the 

 modern stream has a much wider valley than on either side of 

 the former river course. 



The development of the Ohio river. From the preceding discus- 

 sion it appears that the Ohio, throughout the part of its course 

 which borders our state, is a composite stream. Between these 

 ancestral streams, important divides existed at the following 

 points: (1) near New Martinsville, (2) in the vicinity of Hunting- 

 ton, W. Va,, (3) east of Manchester, (4) between Cincinnati and 

 the Great Miami. The Ohio river was brought into existence, 

 then, by stream capture or piracy cutting down these divides. 

 The order in which the captures took place cannot be stated, nor 

 has it been demonstrated what was the agency that induced 

 the captures. That the Ohio had practically its present course 

 before the first ice invasion affected the state, is probable. It 

 appears, therefore, that the direction of river-flow in the part of 

 the old Pittsburg valley which bore a north-flowing stream from 

 the vicinity of New Martinsville to Beaver, Pa., has been reversed. 

 Reversals of flow have also taken place in some other segments of 

 this composite river. 



More satisfactory work has been done in unraveling the origin 

 of the Ohio river than in other studies of former drainage in the 

 state, for the reason that glaciation has only slightly affected this 

 stream. All the rivers from the north, during most of the time 

 that the ice was in the state, were heavily loaded with outwash, 

 which silted up the valleys, even that of the Ohio to some extent. 



Lake Erie Drainage 



No large rivers, belonging entirely to this state, empty into 

 Lake Erie; the Maumee, which is of considerable length, rises in 

 Indiana. In the eastern half of the state the rivers are short, 

 because the present divide 1 etween the Ohio and the Erie basins 

 is nearer the latter. In the western half the rivers are longer 

 but somewhat complicated, because of glacial deposits. I will 

 briefly describe these rivers, commencing on the east. 



Conneaut creek. This stream has its sources in Pennsylvania. 

 Its course for several miles is quite parallel to the lake shore, a 



