168 PLEISTOCENE OF INDIANA AND MICHIGAN. 



moraine to enter the St. Joseph (of the Maumee), and Aboit River passes directly down the axis 

 of the basin along the old outlet of the glacial lake Maumee to Wabash River. Very little 

 sandy or gravelly outwash is seen on the outer border of the Wabash moraine, the streams 

 having then courses through till plains. Some sand and gravel occurs along the Pigeon. A 

 gravel plain on the outer border of this moraine a few miles north of Fort Wayne at the head 

 of Eel River seems to be an outwash from it. The drainage for glacial waters from the 

 southwest-flowing part of Cedar Creek may have been across this gravel plain to Eel River. 

 It is probable also that the Wabash afforded a line of escape for the glacial waters in the 

 vicinity of the axis of the basin. 



FORT WAYNE MORAINE. 



The Fort Wayne moraine follows the north side of the St. Marys River valley from the 

 Ohio line northwestward to Fort Wayne, and the east side of the valley of the St. Joseph (of 

 the Maumee) from Fort Wayne northeastward into northwestern Ohio. It has a general width 

 of 3 or 4 miles and presents a gently undulating surface with less strength of expression than 

 any of the other outlying moraines of this series. Its main crest is 50 to 75 feet above the beds 

 of the streams that follow the outer border. The streams are in shallow trenches usually 20 

 to 30 feet deep and the moraine has a relief of 30 to 50 feet above the bluff or plain bordering 

 the valley. The outer slope is a mile or more across, being scarcely as steep as in the moraines 

 outside. The drift in this moraine is largely a clayey till and carries but few bowlders on its 

 surface. The moraine may have had some outwash into the St. Joseph Valley, along which 

 there is a strip of gravelly land; but wells show that the gravel extends to great depth and 

 that it appears to pass under the till of the moraine. Probably only the surface portion, includ- 

 ing perhaps that standing above the level of the present stream, is to be correlated with the 

 Fort Wayne moraine. These gravel deposits extend beyond the mouth of St. Joseph River 

 into the bend of St. Marys River in the west part of Fort Wayne. There is no evidence of 

 vigorous outwash into the St. Marys Valley above Fort Wayne. 



AREA EAST OF THE FORT WAYNE MORAINE. 

 By Frank B. Tayloe. 



The area east of the Fort Wayne moraine is described by Mr. Leverett in an earlier report, 1 

 but the completion by the United States Geological Survey of topographic maps covering the 

 district between Findlay and Delphos, Ohio, made a reexamination very desirable. The area 

 is one in which the beaches of Lake Maumee approach the front of the Defiance moraine near 

 Findlay and appear to afford excellent opportunity for the study of the deforming effect of 

 ice attraction on contiguous lake waters. (See pp. 342-346.) The writer spent a short time 

 studying this and related areas in 1908 and 1909. 



Although the recent detailed studies in this area are very incomplete and fragmentary, 

 the results are important for several reasons. Hitherto the interval between the Fort Wayne 

 and Defiance moraines has been represented as devoid of terminal moraines. This stretch of 

 45 miles is unusually wide for an intermorainic space and has been something of a puzzle to 

 glacial geologists for many years. The studies recently made seem to show that this interval 

 is in fact occupied by several faint terminal moraines, most of which, so far as known, are 

 crowded into the western part of the area and seem to be closely related to the Fort Wayne 

 moraine as previously mapped. 



At least two faint moraines pass through that area between the Fort Wayne and Defiance 

 moraines. They run in courses nearly parallel with the main or frontal crest of the Fort 

 Wayne moraine in the vicinity of Lima, Ohio, and appear to be related to it. One of them 

 passes west from Mount Cory to Bluffton, where it turns southwestward and passes a mile or 

 so south of Cairo and Elida; this may be called the Bluffton moraine. Another fainter ridge 

 runs west from Rawson and curves to the southwest roughly parallel with the Bluffton moraine 



1 Leverett, Frank, Glacial formations and drainage features of the Erie and Ohio basins: Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. 41, 1902, pp. 566-581. 



