190 



These gaps aud old channels are numerous and conspicuous in north- 

 ern ■ Montgomery and southern Tippecanoe counties particularly. Lye, 

 Potato and Black creeks, flowing south into Sugar Creek, have their 

 present sources at gaps in the divide to the north, where they approach 

 in some cases within a few feet of the sources of streams flowing north- 

 east and north into the Wabash. 



A map and discussion of this region was presented to this body at 

 its last winter meeting, and the points reviewed are referred to in con- 

 nection with the present question of recession. The Independence-Dar- 

 lington moraine has at least six overflow channels across it, from which 

 the water formerly flowed south between this ridge and the eastern edge 

 of what Mr. Leverett calls the "Champaign Till Sheet" in his report men- 

 tioned above. This till sheet approaches in the vicinity of New Richmond, 

 Montgomery County, within a mile of the Independence-Darlington ridge, 

 the space between showing long stretches of very fertile level prairies, 

 doubtless the beds of former lakes. North Coal Creek now flows west along 

 the northern border of this portion of the Champaign till sheet, to the 

 great bend where it flowed against the eastern edge of the Michigan lobe 

 and was turned south within six miles of the present line of the Wabash 

 and compelled to make its way twenty-five miles to the south before join- 

 ing it. South Shawnee Creek turned south then and joined Coal Creek at 

 the bend through the marshy sag now connecting their abi'upt elbows. 



A comparison of the altitudes of these gaps with the altitudes of 

 stations along the Cloverleaf Railway (T., St. L. & K. C.) shows very 

 well the westward slope of the country along the divide between the 

 streams flowing north into the Wabash and those flowing south into 

 Sugar Creek. In the order of their occurrence from east to west the 

 stations and their altitudes are: Clark's Hill, 818 feet; Beeville, 792 feet; 

 Kirkpatrick, 787 feet; Linden, 783 feet; New Richmond, 776 feet; Wingate, 

 776 feet; and Ayles worth, at the bend of Coal Creek, on the C. & E. I. 

 R. R., 644 feet. Aylesworth is 150 feet lower than Beeville and 130 feet 

 lower than New Richmond. The water then must have been held in by 

 a baiTier approximating 150 feet in height to account for the overflow 

 channels south along the eastern edge of the Champaign sheet. The 

 altitude of the overflow channels toward the south would give the 

 lake lying north and east of the divide a depth increasing with the 

 northeastern slope to more than 100 feet at Dayton in eastern Tippecanoe 

 County, whose altitude is 673 feet, as compared with 787 feet at Kirk- 



