277 
A. low, broad ridge is shown upon the terrace, but in general its surface 
is quite uniform. This terrace descends gently toward the south so that 
at York, six miles south, it has an elevation of scant 30 feet above low 
water, while at Hutsonville, five miles below York, it has an elevation of 
only about 25 feet, just about on a level with the high floods, and only 
about 80 rods wide. Just north of Hutsofiville there is a great hill of sand 
and gravel that rises about 45 feet above low water, but the greater part 
of the terrace is low. Thus the gravel terrace, so massive, so prominent 
a feature in Vigo County, almost disappears within 40 miles. It seems 
probable that the old valley was once filled with sand and grayel, at least 
to the elevation of the higher points of the present time. The present 
features of the valley are apparently due to extensive erosion. Meander 
lines run in 1816 show that the present river has not eroded its gravel 
banks to any appreciable extent during the past 80 years. The work of 
erosion signifies much stronger currents than prevail in the present river, 
even when in flood. 
THE KANKAKEE VALLEY. By H. T. Montgomery, M. D. 
One of the great waterways during the ice period seems to have been 
entirely overlooked by our local and State geologists. I refer to the great 
Kankakee Valley, whose stream had its origin at the foot of the Saginaw 
glacier, and received tributary streams from the Maumee and Michigan 
glaciers, and became in time the outlet for the waters flowing south 
from Lake Huron through Saginaw Bay before they secured an outlet 
through the Niagara River. This great valley served as a waterway for 
the waters during the withdrawal of the first ice sheet, from the fact that 
its channel was silted up like all other great stream valleys during the 
Champlain epoch or age of depression, and was never re-excavated to any 
extent, and remains to-day a filled valley. It probably conveyed the 
waters during the advance of the last ice sheet, but soon after the sheet 
began to withdraw the waters found an outlet into Lake Michigan, leaving 
the Kankakee Valley at the point where South Bend now lies, through the 
bed of its largest tributary, which will be described later on. The Kanka- 
kee Valley extends from a point in Illinois where the present Kankakée 
River and the Desplaines unite, taking a northeasterly course through 
Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, to the watershed between the streams 
