30 Cincinnati Society of Nat7iral History. 



rapid flow of water, in another a slow and gentle movement, and 

 in still others eddying currents which deposited the sediment in 

 compact beds. 



If the course of the Ohio river was different at one time from 

 what it is now, the question arises, where was this previous 

 channel? Several facts seem to point to the conclusion that in 

 the vicinity of our city, in fact on the very site of the city itself, 

 there was once spread out a sheet of water which assumed almost 

 the aspect of a lake. The whole of the ground where are now 

 standing the cities of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport, was 

 doubtless once covered with a sheet of water whose boundaries 

 were the Kentucky highlands on the south, the range of high- 

 lands west of Mill Creek valley on the west, and the rocks which 

 form the base of "Indian Hill" on the east. The outlet of this 

 sheet of water, or this lake, was not its present one, namely, past 

 the mouth of Mill Creek, but up what is now Mill Creek valley on 

 one side, and up the Little Miami valley and an ancient channel 

 between Red Bank and Plainville on the other side, of what then 

 formed an island, and which is now occupied by the suburbs of 

 Mt. Lookout, Walnut Hills, Mt. Auburn, Avondale and Clifton. 

 These ancient channels extended northward on the east and west 

 of the island, and united near where Ludlow Grove now is, and 

 thence together held their way northward to Hamilton. There 

 they turned to the west and south, and reached the Ohio river 

 valley as it is now, somewhere near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, by 

 following the course now used by the Big Miarjii. In those 

 ancient days a barrier of land stretched in as yet an unbroken line 

 from Price Hill across to the Kentucky side, and this compelled 

 the water to find an outlet by the ways we have mentioned. 



It is supposed that during the glacial period, the end of an 

 immense glacier extended south as far as the Ohio river, and at 

 Cincinnati so completely blocked the channel as to compel the 

 river to seek a more southern course. But at the close of the ice 

 age, and when the glacier had melted, the river attempted to 

 return to its former channels. Finding, however, its old bed 

 filled with sand and gravel, the debris of the retiied ice field, and 

 finding, perhaps, also that the former impassible barrier had lost 

 some of its height, it beat against it, gradually wore it away, and 

 cut for itself a new channel from the mouth of Mill Creek to Law- 

 renceburg. 



