266 PLEISTOCENE OF INDIANA AND MICHIGAN. 



INTERLOBATE DEPOSITS AND SCATTERED RIDGES IN SANILAC COUNTY. 



In Evergreen, Greenleaf, and Austin townships, large irregular masses of stony till which 

 seem to show no particular trend or arrangement, except on the east and northwest sides, are 

 cut up into irregular patches by a number of branching and interlacing glacial channels and 

 spillways. On the east and northwest sides they he closely parallel with the front of the Port 

 Huron morainic system and are separated from it only by the channel of the outlet of Lake 

 Whittlesey. 



Along the east side a range of hills runs north-northwest about 7 miles from the middle of 

 Minden Township across the southwest comer of Paris Township to the center of Bingham 

 Township, Huron County. Although paraUel with the front of the Port Huron system, this 

 range of hills shows forms that bear some resemblance to drumlins ; in fact, it is made up of 

 smooth, oval hills with their axes coincident with the trend of the group. Other isolated hills 

 of this type stand in eastern Austin Township. The larger hills reach a height of 50 to 60 feet. 

 These hills are not perfect drumlins, but a few of them fall little short of typical forms. The 

 occurrence of drumlins or drumloid hills in this angle in front of the Port Huron system finds a 

 complement on the Canadian side of this same ice lobe which makes for symmetry in a very 

 striking way, viz, near Clinton, Ontario, a considerable number of small but well-formed 

 drumlins stand in front of a reentrant angle in this same moraine. The angle, however, is not 

 acute like that on the "thumb." 



In Sanilac County west of Black River, east of the moraine last described and south 

 of the interlobate area in the northwestern part, scarcely any morainic features appear. 

 Almost the entire area is a flat clay plain, and only a few small fragments, none of them more 

 than a mile or two in length and few more than 20 feet high, can be classed as morainic. 

 Eskers, kames, and transverse ridges are more prominent than morainic features. The frag- 

 ments appear to be scattered without arrangement or order, except near Shabbona, whence a 

 series of low clay knolls runs south and southeast into Moore Township, and after an interval 

 of 2 or 3 miles is perhaps extended in more knolls of the same character running south 3 or 4 

 miles from Ehner ; these knolls, however, are so small and scattered that it is doubtful whether 

 they mark a halting place of the ice front. From Lamotte eastward and southward along 

 Cass River is another broken line with low knolls, which may be morainic, but which, from 

 their composition, seem more like a broken esker or a line of kames. (See p. 270.) 



TRANSVERSE RIDGES. 



In southern Sanilac and northwestern St. Clair counties and in less degree in northeastern 

 Lapeer County several ridges he directly across the trend of the moraines and in places are 

 crossed by moraines in such a way as to show that they are the earlier. They are composed 

 largely of clay with large numbers of bowlders, and some of them have associated gravel and 

 sand deposits. Two or three seem to be composed mainly of bowldery clay, but have a veneer- 

 ing of assorted material partly in the form of kames and partly a flat surface covering. 



One of the largest transverse ridges, 40 or 50 feet high and more than a mile wide, runs 

 south-southwest from the middle of Washington Township, Sanilac County. After a swampy 

 interval of 4 miles it reappears, in southeast Elk Township, as an irregular line of ridges connect- 

 ing southward with an extensive kame area near Melvin in central Speaker Township. Here 

 it turns west-southwest and is crossed by the Yale moraine, which appears to be distinctly 

 younger. From the crossing it runs in a remarkably straight course to Mill Creek in sec. 7, 

 Lynn Township, St. Clair County. In this last interval it carries large numbers of bowlders 

 and contains also much gravel. 



Another transverse ridge, parallel with the one just described, begins in the northeast part 

 of Buel Township, where two ridges of smaller size lie close together. Beyond a gap of about 

 a mile it reappears as a prominent ridge running southwest, passes west of Buel, and crosses 

 northwest Fremont Township into eastern Speaker Township, where it too is crossed by the 

 Yale moraine. 



