26% 
river bottoms. Near Grandview the bottoms are about a mile wide. At 
Rockport the river strikes against the bounding bluffs, so the Indiana 
portion of the valley is here reduced to zero. The river then rebounds 
toward the bordering hills in Kentucky, which it strikes at Bonne, 
Harbor Hill, a few miles below Owensboro; Ky. This makes the plain 
north of Owensboro three and a half miles wide. At Enterprise, seven 
miles below Owensboro, the plain is only half a mile wide. Three and a 
half miles below Enterprise the river plain merges into Pigeon Plain. 
The third portion of the plain enters the river plain between Grandview 
and Rockport, its southern portion including part of the town of Rockport. 
it is here three miles wide. Narrowing down to two miles, it extends 
westward three miles, where it turns abruptly northward and enters a 
gorge a full mile wide. After going three miles in this direction it turns 
westward again and enters Pigeon Plain two miles east of Richland, in 
section 31, township 7 south, range 6 west. The narrow part of this plain 
was occupied by a shallow pond of water when this country was first 
settled. This pond was called “The Lake” by the early settlers. For this. 
reason this division will be called Lake Plain, although, as will be shown 
later, the lake is a result and not a cause of the plain. 
These three plains so merge into one another that it 1s impossible to 
tell where one begins and the other ends. The difference in levels of all 
three is very slight, not being over 25 feet except in four places, where 
Honey Creek, Lake Drain Creek, Enterprise Creek and Little Pigeon 
Creek have cut narrow, deep channels in the yielding alluvium. 
The surface is so nearly level that large portions either are or were 
swampy. In Lake Plain is Swan Pond, covering portions of sections 5, 8 
and 32; township 7 south, range 6 west, drained by Swan Pond Ditch; a 
marshy place, near Silver Dale Church, drained by Kennedy’s Ditch, and 
the Lake covering sections 5, 8 and 32, township 7 south, range 6 west, 
drained by a ditch constructed in 1896 and emptying into Lake Drain 
Creek. 
In Pigeon Plain is a series of ditches draining the ‘“‘black land” north 
of Midway; Sweezer’s Ditch, draining Sweezer’s Pond; Lake Ditch, drain- 
ing a Swampy area in sections 24 and 25, township 7 south, range 7 west, 
and sections 19, 30 and 31, township 7 south, range 6 west; Cow Pond and 
Hoop Pole Ditches, draining land near Richland, and Shoptaugh and Wil- 
low Pond Ditches, draining land farther south. In the river plain there- 
are many small ditches draining low tracts. 
