CHAPTER V. 

 CORRELATIVES OF THE CHAMPAIGN MORAINIC SYSTEM. 



By Frank Leverett. 

 INTERPRETATION. 



The outer (or main) moraine and the second moraine of the Champaign morainic system of 

 the Illinois lobe were traced in Monograph XXXVIII to western Montgomery County, Ind., 

 where they connected at a sharp angle with a morainic system coming up from the southeast. 

 The outer moraine connected about 6 miles west of Crawfordsville, near the village of Wesley, 

 and the second moraine about 6 miles farther north, immediately north of Waynetown. At the 

 time the earlier monograph was written the morainic system trending northwest was supposed 

 to override and conceal the northward continuation of the Champaign system. It was referred 

 to the later Wisconsin and the Champaign was referred to the earlier Wisconsin. 



The reference of the northwest-trending morainic system to the later Wisconsin was made 

 not because of positive evidence of overriding but rather as a consequence of the bowlder belts 

 of Warren and Benton counties, which suggested that the Huron-Erie part of the Labrador ice 

 field occupied the vicinity of the junction of the two lobes later than the Illinois lobe. The 

 bowlder belt does not, however, come down to this morainic system but lies a few miles east of it 

 and diverges still farther toward the southeast. After the publication of Monograph XXXVIII 

 the writer revisited the locality and studied quite widely in Montgomery and neighboring coun- 

 ties, aiming to gather all the available evidence on the relation of these moraines to each other 

 and to the moraines and bowlder belts farther north and east. Outwash and drainage features 

 that would throw light on the history were diligently sought, but were found singularly lacking 

 even in the reentrant between the Illinois lobe and the lobe to the east as well as along the west 

 side of the combined belt north of the junction of the moraines. The moraines become merged 

 at their junction into a single belt without definite evidence of difference in the date of deposi- 

 tion, and without outwash from one lobe into the territory of the other. Mention should per- 

 haps be made of a peculiarity of the headwater branches of Coal Creek that lead westward from 

 the combined morainic system just north of the point of union. These branches flow in broad 

 shallow sags nearly half a mile wide and only 15 to 20 feet deep, which were at first suspected to 

 represent erosion by glacial drainage leading westward from the moraine and thus to support 

 the theory of later occupancy by the eastern ice lobe. But further examination showed that the 

 sags lack well-defined banks or bluffs and may have been developed by subglacial drainage. As 

 the matter now stands nothing definite can be cited to prove that the two morainic systems are 

 of different ages. It seems best, therefore, to adopt the simpler alternative and to consider them 

 as probable correlatives. 



A chain of undulating belts leading from the junction of the two moraines in western Indiana 

 to the reentrant between the East White and Miami lobes in eastern Indiana may together form 

 a correlative of the Champaign morainic system of the Illinois lobe, though gaps of considerable 

 width in which nothing of morainic aspect was discovered intervene between some of the links. 

 Each of the undulating strips represents the first stand made by the ice after it retreated from 

 the Wisconsin drift border. 



COURSE AND DISTRIBUTION. 



The course of the outer moraine of the Champaign system having been outlined in Mono- 

 graph XXXVIII up to the point of junction with the supposed correlative west of Crawfords- 

 ville, only the moraines east of the reentrant angle need be discussed. Beginning at the north- 



87 



