184 PLEISTOCENE OP INDIANA AND MICHIGAN. 



that apparently connects it with the Kalamazoo system. Features immediately southeast of 

 Plainwell suggest that the ice may have protruded into the Kalamazoo Valley at the time the 

 Kendall moraine was forming. The weak ridge which leads in from the west seems to wrap 

 around the base of the prominent part of the Kalamazoo system south of Plainwell and to 

 extend southeastward through sees. 5 and 9, Cooper Township, along the west bluff of Kalama- 

 zoo River. Possibly this protrusion of the ice into the Kalamazoo Valley may have held the 

 river at the level of the broad 850-foot terrace near Kalamazoo. If so, the stream is likely to 

 have found escape along the ice edge, between the weak ridge just mentioned and the prominent 

 inner ridge of the Kalamazoo system south of Plainwell, into the low country west of the Kala- 

 mazoo system. 



GLACIAL DRAINAGE. 



Considerable complexity marks the glacial drainage. The swamps which occupy the 

 beds of the old lines of drainage can not be connected into a single drainage system. A con- 

 spicuous swamp heading just south of Paw Paw is 755 to 760 feet in altitude at its north end 

 and slopes southwestward to about 720 feet at its south end west of Dowagiac, where its 

 bed is expanded into a plam that was apparently occupied by a lake termed Lake Dowagiac 

 (see Ann Arbor folio), which discharged into the Kankakee at South Bend, Ind. This swamp 

 probably was functional as a line of glacial drainage at the time when the ice occupied 

 the weak ridge that leads eastward from Paw Paw to the Kalamazoo morainic system and 

 continued functional until the ice had receded sufficiently to permit the glacial waters to dis- 

 charge down the Paw Paw Valley. 



A second conspicuous swamp heads northeast of the prominent part of the Kendall moraine 

 and leads southwestward down Paw Paw River. This swamp has an altitude of about 725 

 feet at the divide between Kalamazoo and Paw Paw rivers, east of Kendall, and falls to about 

 700 feet at the junction of the two forks of Paw Paw River north of the village of Paw Paw. 

 It has cut into the outwash apron bordering the Kendall moraine to a depth of 25 feet or more, 

 indicating that it is somewhat the younger. Evidently the ice must have receded to the north 

 side of Paw Paw River as far down as the edge of Berrien County, or nearly to its mouth, before 

 glacial drainage could have made use of the Paw Paw Valley, and this apparently was con- 

 siderably later than the time of the formation of the Kendall moraine. 



A third swampy belt, north of Kalamazoo River, is followed by Gun River from Gun Lake 

 down to the Kalamazoo. Its altitude is scarcely 725 feet where it is crossed by the Grand Rapids 

 & Indiana Railway north of Plainwell, or a little less than at the northern end of the swamp 

 that leads from the Kalamazoo southward to the Paw Paw drainage. The difference, however, 

 is very slight and it is not improbable that the whole excess is due to peaty accumulations on 

 the divide between Kalamazoo and Paw Paw rivers, in which case the drainage from the Gun 

 River channel may have been continued into the Paw Paw channel. 



LAKE MICHIGAN- SAGINAW INTEELOBATE TRACT. 

 DISTRIBUTION. 



The junction between the Lake Michigan and Saginaw lobes during the formation of the 

 Kalamazoo morainic system was in western Barry County, a few miles southwest of Hastings. 

 In the course of the development of the moraines the junction worked northward in a somewhat 

 zigzag course, being for a time in the southern edge of Kent County about 12 miles south of Grand 

 Rapids, later near the site of the city of Grand Rapids, and still later a few miles south of BigRapids. 

 From Big Rapids north to Cadillac a very massive morainic accumulation was formed, covering 

 the western half of Mecosta County 7 , the eastern part of Newaygo and Lake counties, a large 

 part of Osceola County, and a few miles of southeastern Wexford and southwestern Missaukee 

 counties. This accumulation is more than 50 miles in length and 25 miles in breadth and is 

 by far the most prominent morainic development in the southern peninsula. 



