148 



with the eastern boundary of the county, and from thence northeast through 

 Waterloo, DeKalb County, to the eastern boundary of the State, would enclose 

 approximately this Lake Region of Northeastern Indiana. 



I would not attempt to bound it by any invariable line. The characteristic 

 conditions for plant growth found in the center of the region may at some places 

 extend somewhat beyond the limits given, and at other places may not reach 

 them. 



The region includes, in general, all of Steuben County and Noble County, 

 th'e northeast part of Kosciusko County, the southeast part of LaGrange County, 

 and the extreme north part of Whitley County. 



This part of the State has for some time appeared to me to present conditions 

 for plant growth different even from the rest of the northern counties contained 

 in Dr. Coulter's "Lake Eegion," and I am glad to have it proven by Dr. Dryer 

 in his geological report of Steuben County^ that this region as outlined above has 

 separate and distinct geological features. After speaking of the drift left by the 

 Saginaw ice and the Erie ice, and the confused mass of drift left by their union, 

 he says^ : "Such a belt or drift forms the Saginaw-Erie interlobate moraine, 

 which in Indiana stretches across the counties of Steuben, LaGrange, Noble, 

 AVhitley and Kosciusko. Thus are the peculiarities of topography and soil in 

 that region accounted for." 



It is not claimed that plants characteristic of the region are not found in the 

 neighborhood of lakes of northern Indiana outside of its limits. 



The proportion of lakes and their characteristic surroundings outside of the 

 Northeastern Indiana Lake Region, is so small when compared with such condi- 

 ions in the region, that plants found farthest from the lakes, together with others 

 entirely foreign will predominate in the other northern counties. 



In a report in 1874, by G. M. Levette*, upon the geology of the northern 

 tier of counties, including a greater part of the region under discussion and the 

 most northern counties of Dr. Coulter's Lake Region, he says' : "On the eastern 

 Bide of the district, the land originally timbered is largely in excess of prairies 

 and openings, but, as we go west the proportion of prairie land increases." In 

 the same report he says of Elkhart County" : " Only a small per cent, is covered 

 with peat-bogs, lakes and marshes." Of St. Joseph County he says' : " Diversi- 

 fied with prairies, oak, openings, and rolling timber lands;" and', "small tracts 



" 17th Rep. State Geologist Ind., 1891. 



3 Idem, p. 1:^2. 



* 5th Rep. State Geologist, Ind., 1S74. 



Mdem,p.432. 



" Idem, p. 452. 



' Idem, p. 457. 



