MORAINES OF NOETHEEN LIMB OF HURON-ERIE LOBE IN INDIANA. 161 



the higher gravel plain was building, or was perhaps occupied temporarily by a lake which was 

 drained later by the cutting down of its outlet across the gravel plain. The sand might thus be 

 an outwash from the ice, which settled in the bed of the lake. The district is sparsely settled 

 and has only a few shallow wells, so the character of the material below the surface sand is not 

 known. 



South of Pigeon River considerable clayey till occurs between the Lagrange moraine and 

 the more bulky moraine to the east in south Lagrange County, but its continuation into Noble 

 County is loose textured. 



BOWLDERS. 



Bowlders are more plentiful and at the same time less regularly distributed on the. outer 

 than on the inner part of the morainic belt, but are not rare in either situation. The 

 number on the outer part compares favorably with the number found in the several moraines 

 of the Saginaw lobe (Maxinkuckee, New .Paris, Middlebury, Lagrange, and Sturgis), which 

 connect with this morainic belt. One of the most striking accumulations in the region is found, 

 however, not on the morainic belt but in the Wabash Valley near Logansport, in whose out- 

 skirts there are hundreds if not thousands of bowlders to the acre. As the Wabash is a com- 

 paratively weak eroding agent these bowlders must have been concentrated by the erosion of 

 the moraine and the removal of its finer parts by the outlet of Lake Maumee. Some bowlders 

 are scattered over the gravel plain on the outer edge of the morainic belt, good illustrations 

 being found in eastern Lagrange County both north and south of the Pigeon Eiver valley. 



THICKNESS OF THE DRIFT. 



Well data. — The search for natural gas about 1886 led to the making of several deep borings 

 in the region traversed by this morainic belt. Though not successful in finding gas these bor- 

 ings throw some light on the structure of the drift in places where it is especially thick. 



In the northern part of the district, in Steuben, Dekalb, Whitley, and northern Allen 

 counties, the thickness of the drift is very great, but farther south it is relatively thin. Ordinary 

 wells for farm and domestic use reach rock in southern Allen, much of Huntington, southern 

 Wabash, and all of Wells and Adams counties, except when in the line of deep preglacial valleys. 



Steuben County. — Records of farm wells in eastern Steuben County show nearly contin- 

 uous till to 100 feet and even to 150 feet. In places, however, as in the vicinity of Fish Lake 

 in the southeastern part of the county, the drift is gravelly and wells are obtained at depths of 

 25 feet or less. 



A well at the Tri-State Normal CoUege in Angola, 104 feet in depth, may have been largely 

 in pre- Wisconsin drift, for after penetrating 23 feet of yellow and blue till of the Wisconsin 

 drift it entered a reddish stony till with sandy pockets too small to yield much water. This. 

 clay continues 75 feet to a water-bearing gravel at bottom. The ground here is about 35 feet 

 lower than on neighboring knolls and ridges in the southern part of the village. 



Many wells on the high part of the moraine from Angola southwestward are 80 to 100 

 feet and some of them are 160 feet in depth. They ordinarily penetrate loose-textured drift 

 with a water table 75 feet or more below the surface. Some of them, however, are reported to 

 have penetrated much blue till. Exposures along roadsides and in ravines show stony till of 

 very loose texture. 



Lagrange and Nolle counties. — Numerous shallow flowing wells exist in southern Lagrange 

 and northern Noble counties in a plain between the Lagrange moraine and the main moraine 

 to the east. Most of them are on low tracts a few feet below the level of the bordering plain 

 near Elkhart River and some of its tributaries, the head apparently being insufficient to give 

 flows on the plain. Many are only 10 to 20 feet deep and the occurrence of flows from such 

 slight depth seems all the more remarkable, from the fact that there are no tracts markedly 

 higher in the immediate vicinity to serve as or suggest the source of the artesian head. The 

 elevation above sea level to which the water rises decreases 60 feet from northeast to southwest 

 34407°— 15 11 



