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HEADWATERS OF SALT CREEK IN PoRTER COUNTY. 
By L. F. BENNETT. 
Salt Creek rises three miles southeast of the city of Valparaiso, im 
section 6, 35 north, 5 west. It flows southwest one mile, thence in a north- 
northwesterly direction, cutting through the crest of the Valparaiso Mo- 
raine, and empties into the Calumet River in section 351, 37 north, 6 west. 
This paper has to do with the first four miles of its course. 
Like many creeks in a drift region, it pursues a winding course 
through a marsh varying in width from one hundred yards to nearly a 
mile; and unlike most creeks it has several islands situated in its marshy 
bottom near its headwaters. These islands have their longer axes parallel 
with the general direction of the creek in that locality. They are from 
ten to fifty feet higher than the surrounding marsh and are from fifty 
yards to one-fourth of a mile in length. There are also tongues of land 
extending, in a few instances, one-fourth mile from the higher land and are 
connected with the higher land by low necks. The banks of the marsh, as 
a rule, are quite steep, and rise from forty to eighty feet above the creek 
bed. The marsh has so little slope that with the present price of land, 
it is not worth draining. It is so wet and uneven in most places that it 
is worthless for pasture. In the southwest quarter of section seven, there 
is a tributary marsh ahout ten feet above the level of the main marsh, 
and about forty acres in extent. It is connected to the larger marsh by. 
a narrow channel. The sides of the marsh are from ten to twenty feet 
high and rather abrupt. During the greater part of the year there is no 
water in the connecting channel. 
The flat marshy creek bottom, with its islands, tongues of land and 
abruptly sloping banks, furnishes a marked exception to the nearly level 
tepography of the region to the south and east, which slopes very gradu- 
ally to the Kankakee River. 
The islands, and without doubt, many at one time were really such, 
are the most interesting features. Some are as high as the adjacent land 
on the sides of the marsh from which they appear to be cut; many have 
been eroded until they are but little above the general level of the marsh, 
and others have been nearly cut into two parts by unequal erosion They 
show every variety as to shape and height above the general level. 
