96 YEARBOOK, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE. [Vol. I. 



visible some distance north of the city, and passes southward 

 through the towns of Granville and Wauwatosa, entering the city 

 at the northwest corner and extending southward through the 

 west side. This moraine is especially prominent at the point where 

 it crosses Grand Avenue, where the crest is seen at Twenty-third 

 Street, and attains a maximum elevation of about 700 feet. At this 

 point, the moraine is approximately three-quarters of a mile in 

 breadth, with a comparatively gentle eastward slope and an ex- 

 tremely abrupt western front. The northern division of this mo- 

 raine ends a1)ruptly at the Menominee valley, in a series of bluffs 

 rising from sixty to eighty feet above the river. These bluffs occur 

 along the entire frontage on the river from Sixteenth Street west- 

 ward to Thirty-sixth Street. South of the Menominee, the moraine 

 continues through ihe Lay ton Park district, and is especially promi- 

 nent along Twenty-second Avenue. The moraine turns abruptly 

 to the southeastward at the southern boundary of the city, and 

 continues to the lake front which is reached at Cudahy. There the 

 lake has partially eaten through the ridge forming a series of very 

 high and prominent bluffs which continue southward along the 

 lake front to South Mihvaukee. Further southward the moraine 

 leaves the lake, and the deposits of Lake Chicago appear to the 

 eastward of it. From Cudahy its course is almost due south to 

 the State line, and it is everywhere a short distance, usually not over a 

 mile, from Lake Michigan. 



The most western line of moraine seems to be a branch of the 

 second, i. e., the two probably coalesce to the northward of the 

 city and continue through the Town of Granville as one single 

 ridge. This moraine first prominently appears to the northward 

 of Wauwatosa, and crosses the Menominee river between Wauwa- 

 tosa and Milwaukee. It, too, has a series of high bluffs fronting 

 on both the north and south sides of the Menominee valley and 

 continues in a general southerly direction through West Allis, into 

 the Town of Greenfield. There it takes a southeasterly course, and 

 within a few miles reaches its highest elevation, 820 feet. This 

 moraine continues in a general southerly direction through the 

 Towns of Oak Creek, Caledonia, etc., to the State line, which is 

 reached immediately to the eastward of the Des Plaines river. 

 These three morainal ridges all represent successive positions of 

 the margin of the Michigan lobe of the Wisconsin ice sheet. The 



