LATER MORAINES OF LAKE MICHIGAN, SAGINAW, AND HURON-ERIE LOBES. 245 



into northwestern Oakland County, and, although narrower than at points farther west, it seems 

 to include the Ionia and Portland moraines. 



On entering Lapeer County the Portland moraine seems to stand out clearly as the front 

 moraine of the deployed group, although on the meridian of Lansing it is the fourth. This rela- 

 tion, however, is not altogether certain, for it is possible that one or more of the earlier moraines 

 of the group not yet identified emerges from under the later moraines and runs along the face 

 of the higher ground to the south. 



In northwestern Livingston County, 5 miles north of Howell, a crescent-shaped morainic 

 loop, the identity and relations of which have not been certainly made out, projects southward 

 about 4 miles beyond the general front of the deployed group. This loop may be a part of 

 the Lansing moraine which was not overridden at this point or it may be still older; it has some 

 characters unlike those of the slender moraines of the deployed group. It is not high, but it is 

 more hummocky and more bowldery, being in these respects more like the massive moraines of 

 the Charlotte system to the south. Its relation to the ice-border drainage also suggests that it 

 is alien to the deployed group ; it is cut off along its northern side by a large river channel which 

 comes out of Lapeer County and runs southwest close along the front of the overridden belt to 

 Fowlerville, in northwestern Livingston County. 



East of Grand Blanc, in eastern Genesee and western Lapeer counties (Davison, Atlas, 

 Elba, and Hadley townships), the relations of the moraines are very simple. The Fowler moraine 

 is the first which can be traced into Lapeer County continuously and without uncertainty as to 

 its identity. In this stretch the Fowler and two earlier moraines are deployed in open parallel 

 lines and seem to stand in simple consecutive order. If this is the true relation then one running 

 past Elba, which stands next east of the Fowler moraine, may be regarded as the Lyons moraine, 

 and the next which runs past Hadley as the Portland moraine. There is, however, a possibility 

 that the relations are not so simple as they seem, for at Goodrich some high morainic knolls 

 which seem to stand apart from the front of the ridge which passes Elba on the west are probably 

 related to a glacial drainage line which issues from the moraine that runs past Hadley and which 

 passes about l.J miles southeast of Elba. But it is also possible that the knolls are projecting 

 points of a moraine which was overridden by the later of these ridges; other knolls in Lapeer 

 County stand 2 miles or more southeast of Elba between these ridges. This alternative, though 

 possible, is improbable, for elsewhere overlapping produces a jumbled, confused morainic 

 topography and not an extremely simple one like that here formed. 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



ALTITUDE. 



From the apex of the lobe near Lake Odessa to the west line of Lapeer Comity is a distance 

 of 80 to 90 miles. If the deployed moraines marked the side of a simple lobe the range in altitude 

 on each individual moraine from the apex to Lapeer County would probably be considerable. 

 But the valley of Flint River caused the formation in Genesee County of a broad subsidiary 

 or side lobe which bulged out toward the southeast, and this tended to lower the moraines 

 slightly in the eastern part of the district. For so great a distance the range in altitude is 

 relatively small, being due partly to the Flint sublobe and partly to the fact that the Saginaw 

 lobe here deployed on a nearly flat plain. 



All the moraines rise, though not uniformly, from the apex of the lobe to the west line of 

 Lapeer County. Their lowest parts are all at or near the apex of the lobe, and their highest 

 parts are in the northwest corner of Oakland County and near the northeast corner of Genesee 

 County. In northwestern Oakland County several knobs rise 1,000 feet or more above sea 

 level. All of these appear to belong to the front of the deployed group in the belt of over- 

 riding, but may really be slightly earlier with the front of the deployed group laid up against 

 their lower slopes. The general altitude of the morainic knolls in the same area is about 

 950 feet. 



