, SAGINAW LOBE. 141 



Joseph, but in this portion, being inside the moraine, it can scarcely be regarded as the outwash 

 from it. As indicated below, this gravel plain of Elkhart heads in later moraines in Noble 

 County. The plain bordering Turkey Creek slopes from the New Paris moraine toward 

 the creek as if formed as an outwash from it. The discharge from the portion of the ice border 

 in Kosciusko County is likely to have been westward through Yellow River, but that from the 

 portion farther north may have found escape along the Elkhart Valley under the edge of the 

 small portion of the ice sheet that extended across that vallej r while the moraine was forming. 

 No outwash was detected along the western edge of the undulating tract that lies west of Turkey 

 Creek and Elkhart River, the country consisting of a flat till tract with fewer bowlders than the 

 undulating tract. 



INNER BORDER. 



The district northeast of the New Paris moraine is exceptionally varied, comprising both 

 flat and undulating till tracts, smooth and pitted gravel plains, lakes both in till tracts and 

 gravel plains, glacial drainage channels, and bowlder belts, all in close association. 



The most conspicuous till plain lies around and southeast of Turkey Lake in northeastern 

 Kosciusko and western Noble counties. On the west and south it is bordered by morainic tracts 

 and on the north by a sandy plain. 



This sandy plain covers the northwestern part of Sparta Township (T. 34 N., R. 8 E.) and 

 the southwestern part of Perry Township (T. 35 N., R. 8 E.) in Noble County and extends west- 

 ward across the northeast corner of Kosciusko County and the southeast part of Elkhart County 

 to the New Paris moraine. Near Ligonier it extends on the north to the bluff of Elkhart River, 

 but farther west is cut off from the river by a narrow bowlder-strewn gently undulating till tract. 

 The plain has its coarsest material at the northeastern edge and slopes southwestward or directly 

 away from the river bluffs toward Solomon Creek, a small stream that heads in western Noble 

 County and flows northwestward to Elkhart River through a channel whose depth is only 10 

 to 20 feet, though its width is about a mile. The portion of this shallow channel in Sparta 

 Township, Noble County, is indented with basins containing swamps or small lakes. The dis- 

 tribution and character of the material as well as the slope of the sand plain indicate that it 

 was built up as an outwash from the ice sheet at a temporary halt in the Saginaw lobe when it 

 had receded about to the valley of Elkhart River in southeastern Elkhart and northwestern 

 Noble counties. The Huron-Erie lobe probably stood at the eastern edge of the plain, and 

 it is thought that the water from this lobe rather than that from the Saginaw cut the shallow 

 channel along Solomon Creek. The junction of the two lobes at that time was probably near 

 Ligonier. The Saginaw lobe, where not combined with the Huron-Erie lobe, appears to have 

 developed no definite moraine on the border of the plain, but the Huron-Erie lobe has a strong 

 moraine. (Seep. 159.) 



North of Elkhart River a gently undulating till tract several miles in width occupies the interval 

 between the river valley and the next later moraine, the Middlebury. This till tract is traversed 

 by a line of glacial drainage about a mile wide that leaves the Elkhart Valley about 2 miles east 

 of Goshen and runs northward to Pine Creek and thence northwestward to the St. Joseph Valley 

 east of Elkhart. Between this line of glacial drainage, which is known as the Canal Marsh, and 

 the Elkhart Valley (which also was utilized as a line of glacial drainage) a tract of till with an 

 area of about 16 square miles stands 30 to 50 feet above the bordering channels. The till is 

 largely loose textured and bears on its surface many bowlders. The portion east of the meridian 

 of Goshen has low swells and numerous basins, some of which are about 40 feet deep and are 

 occupied by lakes. The portion northwest of Goshen has a relatively smooth surface with few 

 basins. 



East of the Canal Marsh channel the surface is gently 'undulating with swells 10 to 20 feet 

 high and with very few basins. The altitude is generally about 900 feet or a little less, but in a 

 group of knolls 6 miles east of Goshen it reaches 950 feet. The drift is somewhat more clayey 

 than in the tract north of Goshen, but is on the whole a rather loose textured till. Bowlders are 

 numerous over much of the surface and are especially abundant in a strip setting in about 5 miles 

 east of Goshen and running eastward to the county line. 



