SAGINAW LOBE. 153 



general elevation. It stands but little higher than the bordering gravel plain, and its sags 

 and sloughs are lower than the gravel plain. 



The general relief of the moraine above the outer border district is only 20 to 30 feet, though 

 that of individual knolls or groups of knolls is 100 feet. The relief of the inner border between 

 St. Joseph and Kalamazoo rivers is about the same as that of the outer, though a little greater 

 near the Kalamazoo and a little less near the St. Joseph. For part of its course the crest of the 

 moraine forms the divide between tributaries of the St. Joseph and those of the Kalamazoo. 



CHARACTER. 



On the whole the Tekonsha moraine has not so rough a surface as the Sturgis moraine. 

 Many of its knolls are but 10 to 15 feet high and few exceed 40 feet. It is, however, exceptionally 

 prominent in two places; one, in western Tekonsha Township, is locally known as "the Alps" 

 and has knolls 80 to 100 feet high with very steep slopes; the other, in the reentrant on the 

 south side of Kalamazoo River near the line of Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties, is known as 

 "Tobj T s Hill" and rises more than 100 feet above neighboring districts on the east, north, and 

 west. 



In places peat bogs and basins are conspicuous. On the south side of St. Joseph River, 

 immediately east of Tekonsha, 2 or 3 square miles is rendered largely waste land by the presence 

 of boggy basins. Small knolls rise like islands from the boggy tract and a prominent part 

 of the moraine sweeps around its eastern and southern edges. This prominent part of the 

 moraine also includes boggy basins in the southwest part of Clarendon Township. Between 

 Nottawa Creek valley and Kalamazoo River several small lakes are inclosed by morainic knolls, 

 and others lie in gravel plains on the inner border of the moraine. Lakes are especially con- 

 spicuous from Quincy southwestward in the correlative moraine of the Huron-Erie lobe, Marble 

 Lake and Coldwater Lake each having an area of more than 2 square miles, and several others 

 having areas of one-fourth to three-fourths of a square mile. They are distributed in a chain 

 which perhaps marks the line of a preglacial valley extending from near Quincy south- 

 southwestward into Indiana. 



The interlobate spur north of the Kalamazoo Valley is more conspicuous by reason of its 

 depressions and basins than by its knolls and ridges. Some of the depressions are 30 to 50 feet 

 below the bordering gravel plains ; they seem to indicate that stagnant ice persisted here during 

 the building of the gravel plains by outwash from a later moraine. 



The correlative in the Lake Michigan lobe west of the reentrant angle in eastern Kalamazoo 

 County has a very hummocky topography and incloses small lakes and basins. In roughness 

 it is scarcely excelled by any part of the Tekonsha moraine unless it be "the Alps" west of 

 Tekonsha. 



GLACIAL DRAINAGE CHANNELS. 



The moraine is interrupted by several valley-like gaps where, glacial drainage seems to have 

 been forced across it while the ice sheet was standing near its inner edge. The most conspicuous 

 of these interruptions is a low gravel plain over 2 miles in average width immediately north of 

 Tekonsha. South of the St. Joseph two narrow gaps only one-fourth to one-half mile wide 

 cross the moraine east of Tekonsha in Clarendon Township. Between them is a narrow strip 

 of moraine on which Clarendon Center stands. The channels unite near the Branch County 

 line and the single valley continues southwestward emerging from the moraine about 2 miles 

 northeast of Girard in sees. 11 and 12, T. 5 S., R. 6 W. A few miles farther south another 

 channel leads across the moraine from St. Joseph River to Hog Creek, passing just north of the 

 hamlet of South Butler. Between South Butler and Quincy a network of channels occupies 

 more than half the surface, above which morainic knolls rise in small groups. A portion of the 

 glacial drainage seems to have discharged from Quincy westward past Coldwater, and a portion 

 northwestward past Girard along the Hog Creek valley to Coldwater River. These channels 

 follow lines where the moraine was especially weak and where passages could therefore be easily 

 opened. 



