180 PLEISTOCENE OF INDIANA AND MICHIGAN. 



FEATURES IN INDIANA. 



In the district west of St. Joseph River a gravel plain, with an altitude of 800 feet on its 

 north border near Ndes, Mich., slopes slightly to the south or southeast from the edge of the 

 moraine. Between the inner moraine of the Kalamazoo system and the Rolling Prairie bowldery 

 tract a lower gravel plain known as Terre Coupee Prairie, an outwash from the Valparaiso 

 morainic system, drops from an altitude of about 775 feet where it fits against the moraine to 

 about 700 feet at the edge of the Kankakee Marsh. The Rolling Prairie gravelly tract west of 

 the Terre Coupee Prairie has an altitude of about 850 feet immediately south of New Carlisle 

 but drops to less than 800 feet on its southern border. Between the Rolling Prairie bowldery 

 tract and Laporte another low gravel plain, heading in the Valparaiso morainic system at an 

 altitude of about 780 feet, leads down the Little Kankakee to the Kankakee Marsh. The plain 

 west of it, on which the city of Laporte stands, has an altitude of about 810 feet next to the 

 moraine but drops to 740 feet within about 8 miles southeast of Laporte, and maintains a 

 similar slope toward the Kankakee through its entire breadth in Laporte and eastern Porter 

 counties. This plain is trenched by shallow valleys through which the waters of the Valparaiso 

 system found discharge; one of them is occupied by Mill Creek and another by Crooked Creek. 



COMPOSITION OF THE OUTWASH. 



Along the border next to the morainic system the outwash material is much coarser than it 

 is at a distance, as it would naturally be if the plain was formed by waters issuing from the ice 

 sheet. Stones several inches in diameter are abundant for about a mile from the moraine, but 

 at greater distances few exceed 3 inches and most of the material is a fine gravel with considerable 

 sandy admixture. Portions of the plain have a capping of 2 or 3 feet of reddish clay, which 

 appears to be more prevalent on the high part of the gravel plain in the reentrant between the 

 Saginaw and Lake Michigan lobes and along the border of the Kalamazoo system in south- 

 western Kalamazoo County than it is in the lower and more sandy portions of the plain in 

 central and southern Kalamazoo County. Owing to the clayey character of the soil, portions 

 of the plain in southwestern Kalamazoo County are timbered with beech and maple; yet the 

 clay in few places reaches a depth of 5 feet and it is everywhere underlain by coarse outwash 

 material. 



The thickness of the outwash material on the high parts of the gravel plain in western 

 Kalamazoo County and in the reentrant angle in northern Kalamazoo and southwestern Barry 

 counties is only 30 or 40 feet, for many wells enter till within 40 feet of the surface. Till is also 

 exposed in the cuts along the main line of the Michigan Central Railroad west of Kalamazoo to 

 within 40 feet of the level of the gravel plain. East of Kalamazoo in the district south of the 

 valley of Kalamazoo River the gravel is very thin and in places till comes to the surface ; this is 

 in the line of the main discharge of water southward from the reentrant angle between the ice 

 lobes. Many of the basins on the gravel plain appear to be as deep as the gravel and to be 

 underlain by clay. On the whole, wells in this outwash tract show a larger amount of till than 

 is found in the moraine. The till seems to be of a clayey texture similar to that east of the 

 gravel plain in southeastern Kalamazoo County. 



C. W. Jones's well at Richland, 120 feet in depth, penetrates red clay 3 feet, sand and gravel 

 40 feet, fine quicksand 3 feet, blue till 70 feet, coarse sand with water 4 feet. D. R. Chandler's 

 well, a mile south of Richland, 152 feet in depth, has blue till in its lower 100 feet. Two other 

 wells in Richland were reported to strike blue till at about 45 feet. A well 45 feet deep in sec. 35, 

 Prairieville Township, Barry County, 3 miles north of Richland, was in blue till in the lower 17 

 feet. Several wells in the southern part of Richland Township and the northern part of Corn- 

 stock obtain water at the top of a blue till beneath 50 to 60 feet of outwash material. 



At Kalamazoo a boring for gas made in 1887 reached rock at 130 feet. At the waterworks 

 several borings about 120 feet in depth do not reach rock. None of the borings penetrated much 

 till, the greater part of the drift being a fine sandy gravel. All are in the valley of Kalamazoo 

 River at an altitude of about 775 feet, or 150 feet below the high part of the gravel plain west of 



