BIRDS OF INDIANA. 521 



"The W abash River is the great artery of Indiana, which it traverses 

 for more than 400 miles. The fall is quite uniformly about eighteen 

 inches per mile. Its current is gentle and unbroken by notable rapids 

 or falls. Its valley is quite varied in character. Above Huntington it is 

 a young valley, without bluffs, terraces or flood plain. Below Hunt- 

 ington it once carried the drainage of the upper Maumee Basin, and 

 is nowhere less than a mile wide as far down as Attica. Below that 

 point its width varies from two to six miles. The original valley has 

 been largely filled with drift, which the present river has been unable 

 to clear out. It winds between extensive terraces of gravel, which 

 border it at various elevations, and flows at a level from 50 to 100 feet 

 above the original rock floor. Below Terre Haute, the wide flood plain, 

 ox-bow bends and bayous give it a character similar to that of the 

 lower Mississippi. The upper tributaries as far down as Lafayette are 

 post-glacial streams in drift valleys, whose courses are largely deter- 

 mined by the trend of the moraines. Below that point the smaller 

 tributaries enter the river through picturesque sandstone gorges. 



"White River, the largest tributary of the Wabash, and rivaling it in 

 volume of discharge, is a much more varied and complex stream. The 

 larger West Fork rises at the summit level of the state in Eandolph 

 county. In its upper course it is moraine-guided, like the upper trib- 

 utaries of trie Wabash, and presents the same characters as the other 

 streams of the central plain. In Morgan county it assumes a different 

 aspect, and thence to its mouth flows through a valley from one to 

 three miles wide, 100 to 300 feet deep, bordered by wide bottoms. 

 The East Fork rises on the same elevation as the West, but reaches its 

 destination by a more tortuous course. Although its length is in- 

 creased and its slope decreased by its numerous meanders, it is still 

 a swift stream. Both forks of White river suffered many disturbances 

 during the glacial period, which have not yet been studied in detail, 

 but are obvious from the varying character of their valleys and from 

 the terraces which border them at all heights up to 300 feet. 



"The Whitewater River takes the shortest course of all from the sum- 

 mit level to the Ohio, and its average fall is about seven feet to the 

 mile. At Eichmond it has cut a narrow gorge into the soft shales 

 100 feet deep. In strongest contrast with this and the other rivers 

 of the Ohio Slope is the Kankakee, which winds through wide marshes 

 with a scarcely perceptible current and without definite banks. Its 

 basin, however, is sufficiently elevated to render good drainage possi- 

 ble by the construction of the requisite ditches, and much has already 

 been done to that end. 



