A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY IN INDIANA. 165 



border, and has left its record in broad belts of gravel gathering into a great 

 trunk stream."* 



In April, 1881, the legislature passed an act providing for a survey of the 

 Kankakee region, and Dr. John L. Campbell of Wabash College was ap- 

 pointed by Governor Porter as Chief Engineer. He began the field work in 

 July, 1882, with John M. Coulter, Albert B. Anderson^ and Alfred R. Orton 

 as chief assistants. The results of his work are set forth in a pamphlet with 

 accompanying map, published in 1883, entitled "Report upon the Improve- 

 ment of the Kankakee River and the Drainage of the Marsh Lands inlndiana." 

 He found that the difference in level between the source in St. Joseph County 

 and the point where it leaves the State, a distance of 77 miles as the crow 

 flies, or 240 by the meanderings of the stream as it was then, was but 97.3 

 feet, or a fall of but 1.3 feet to the mile in a straight line or only 5 inches to the 

 mile along the line of flow and that in August, 1882, at average low water, the 

 volume of discharge at the State line was 1,271 cubic feet per second, while 

 during the spring floods it is estimated at 25,000 cubic feet per second. The 

 area drained by the river and its tributaries in Indiana is over 1,600 square 

 miles, or approximately one million acres. As a result of his survey he 

 reported that "The drainage and recovering of the Kankakee marshes will 

 include (a) the construction of a better main channel than now exists for the 

 flow of the river; (b) the straightening and deepening of the beds of the 

 streams which flow into the main stream; (c) the digging of a large number of 

 lateral ditches tlu-ough the swamps to the improved channels. The portion 

 of the work which seems properly to belong to State and National Supervision 

 is the improvement of the main stream. The other parts of the work may be 

 left to the owners of the land, to be executed under our general drainage 

 laws." He estimated the cost of reclaiming the marsh lands under the plans 

 proposed at that date, as about $315,000, or less than $2.00 an acre for the 

 160,000 acres which would be drained. 



In 1884 there was published under the auspices of the Western Reserve 

 Historical Society a paper of 86 pages entitled "The Glacial Boundary in 

 Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky," by Prof. G. Frederick Wright of Oberlin 

 College, Ohio. In this paper there Avas a map showing for the first time the 

 southern limits of the glacial drift in Indiana, though they had been approxim- 

 ately set forth the year before by Dr. Chamberlain in his paper on terminal 

 moraines. In the opening paragraph Prof. Wright says: "When, ten years 

 ago, I began my investigations concerning the kames of the Merrimac valley 

 in Eastern Massachusetts, I little thought to what it would lead; and, after 

 having traced the boundary of the glaciated area from the Atlantic Ocean to 

 the southern part of Illinois, I am equally in doubt as to what the future has 

 in store in this most interesting line of exploration." Of the glacial boundary 

 in Indiana he says: "The boundary line enters Indiana from Kentucky 

 a httle below Aurora. In Indiana the line still continues to bear in a southerly 



*Tliird Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Surv. 1S83, p. 333. 

 JNow Judge of the Federal Court at Indianapolis. 



