7 4 Ciiuiniiati Sociity of Natural His/ory. 



sealed, the scathing floods are ])Oured into tlie great basin at the 

 mouth of the Little Miami and find their way across the narrow- 

 neck of highland that connects Walnut Hills with the plateau 

 beyond. As the ice is weakened there by the breaking down into 

 the valleys on either side, the narrow neck of highland is soon 

 scooped out by the seathing flood, the clay silts up the river 

 valleys, and the rocks, broken and rounded by wearing on each 

 other, form the gravel banks of our highest terraces. But the Ice 

 King will not yield, though his ranks may be broken; and, rein- 

 forced by the arctic winters of that period, he extends his con- 

 cpiests from the pnle to Alabama and marks the limits of his 

 holdings by the floods that groove out the channel of the Tennes- 

 see. He is driven back, and the Cumberland marks his outposts; 

 again he recedes, and the Kentucky marks his intrenched line. In 

 the meantime the latent heat of the earth has been sa])ping the 

 very foundations of the magiiificent structure he has reared, and 

 every valley is pouring from his vitals floods to the seas. His 

 mountains of ice are toppling over the hills and grinding them into 

 the valleys, and not only is his advance driven back, but there is 

 discord and commotion in the very heart of his camp. He falls 

 back from the line of the Kentucky. .He piles mountains of ice 

 and drift in the Ohio, sealing it from cliff to cliff, and in like man- 

 ner closes the little Miami. But tlie waters creep from under his 

 icy, drift-ladened towers. The seething floods of the Ohio go roar- 

 ing against the ice dam in the Little Miami, break across the broad, 

 new channel at Norwood; are joined by the Licking, that is 

 sweeping against what was the current of the Great Miami, scoop- 

 ing awaythe hills and filling the ancient gorge to make room for 

 the building of our goodly. city, and, surging against the flank of 

 the foe, pass around the highland by the Hamilton route and are 

 Joined by such hordes of reinforcements — that escape from under 

 the main glacier — that the torrent is miles in width, and it carries 

 away whole townships of our limestone plateau, turning the rocks 

 into immense gravel beaches, fairly, filling the sea with the mud 

 which it carries down; but it is overloaded, and against the 

 immense ice dam at North Bend it heaps great banks of slimy silt. 

 There is victory in the genial sunbeams, glinting across the lifeless 

 glaciers; and even the Little Miami defies the Ice King. It finds 

 an outlet up the Turtle Creek tributary, cuts away the highland to 

 Middtetown, and soon holds this as the base of the glacier. Life, 

 which for ages has been driven away, or held in bondage by the 



