486 PLEISTOCENE OF INDIANA AND MICHIGAN. 



Between the city hall and Jefferson Avenue, which lies on a distinct ridge, Woodward 

 Avenue crosses a well-defined depression running nearly parallel with the river. The Jefferson 

 Avenue ridge extends from about Cass Street eastward along Jefferson Avenue to the vicinity 

 of St. Aubin Avenue. The depression north of the ridge is very distinct for a considerable 

 distance, but it gradually fades away toward Elmwood Cemetery, though it possibly continues 

 in faint form to Champlain Avenue, to the boulevard north of the Belle Isle bridge, and thence 

 about half a mile farther to the vicinity of Kercheval and Burns streets. In this part of the 

 city the contour of 600 feet above sea level bends from the north around to the south and then 

 to the west, showing a long, low point projecting from the vicinity of Burns and St. Paul streets 

 about to Baldwin Street and Champlain Avenue. The depression behind this point lies in such 

 a position as to form a natural continuation of the trough farther west, and may represent a part 

 of the same distributary channel, although this is not certain. The grading and filhng connected 

 with the improvement and growth of the city have so altered the original surface that a slight 

 depression might have been obliterated. Congress Street lies about in the trough of this old 

 distributary, at least as far east as St. Aubin Avenue. In its western part this depression was 

 originally much deeper than it is now, and was, in fact, the site of a small drowned creek which 

 in the early days formed the harbor of Detroit for the small craft of that time. The deepening 

 of the creek and its subsequent drowning are both later than the time of the distributaries. 

 (See pp. 499-500.) 



Another irregular depression begins three or four blocks east of Grand Circus Park and 

 extends with some irregularities westward across Woodward Avenue and Washington Park and 

 along Labrosse and Baker streets as far as Tenth Avenue where it fades away on a thin deposit 

 of sand. This was not originally so deep as the other, and is less regular, apparently indicating 

 that it was occupied for a shorter time. 



Both of these channels are relatively short and irregular and, in comparison with the more 

 typical examples at St. Clair and Trenton, their identification as distributaries might be regarded 

 as doubtful. But for their position, transverse to the axis of the moraine and parallel to the 

 river, and their relation to sandy deposits made by the river in cutting through the ridge they 

 might be interpreted as merely accidents of morainic deposition. It may be noted that both 

 of them head on the higher part of the ridge and that their bottoms descend toward the west as 

 though they were eroded by currents flowing in that direction. Neither is a quarter of a mile 

 wide, at some points half as much, and probably neither was originally more than 10 to 15 

 feet deep. 



LAKE ROUGE. 



The imperfect distributary channels just described were evidently abandoned early in the 

 cutting of the ridge, for, beginning two squares northeast of the fort at Fort Wayne in the 

 southwestern part of the city and extending west for about half a mile, there is a very well 

 marked gravel and sand deposit, apparently a river bar formed at the head of a delta. The fort 

 and the officers' quarters are on this bar. It appears to have originally extended perhaps a 

 quarter of a mile farther northeast but to have been cut away by the modern river. At the 

 fort and in the lots northeast of it these gravels are rather coarse and clean and the deposit is 

 heaped up 6 or 8 feet higher than the surrounding ground. Toward the southwest this 

 deposit spreads rapidly in passing into Delray and at the same time becomes lower and thin- 

 ner and of finer texture. The gradation within half a mile from coarse gravel to sand fine 

 enough to be blown by the wind is very striking. 



Between the fort and West Detroit and in the vicinity of Clark Park there are a number of 

 irregular deposits, some of them of gravel, like that at Twenty-fourth and River streets, at 

 Twenty-first and Standish streets, and at Scotten and Toledo streets; and others of sand, like 

 that west of St. Luke's Hospital and on the boulevard north of Lafayette Street. Thinner 

 deposits of sand cover most of the surface at Woodmere and Delray, and there are a few duny 

 ridges of fine sand, like that which begins a quarter of a mile south of West Detroit and follows 

 the line of Dix Avenue. There is also much thin sand in the vicinity of Woodmere Cemetery, 



