108 GLACIAL FORMATIONS OF ERIE AND OHIO BASINS. 



Ohio River. But levels more precise than barometric measm-emeiits are 

 needed to make certain of the altitudes and slopes of the terraces in this 

 part of the valley. The widely meandering course of this portion of the 

 Oliio apparently resulted from the former slack drainage and degraded 

 condition of the region Conditions were such that shiftings of the course 

 might easily have been produced. A large area in southern Ohio north of 

 this part of the Ohio Valley carries low divides, which afforded good 

 opportunities for changes of di-ainage. The neighboring portion of West 

 Virginia is also similarly broken down. The changes which this part of 

 the drainage basin has experienced are being made a subject of special 

 investigation by W. G. Tight, under the auspices of the present survey. 

 These investigations will, it is hoped, settle the question whether the old 

 course of drainage continued from the mouth of the Little Kanawha down 

 to the west end of Teays Valley — that is, to the old Kanawha — or, instead, 

 took a northwestward course, more directly toward the Scioto Basin, into 

 which the old Kanawha had its discharge. It seems well to defer the intro- 

 duction of names for the old drainage lines in this part of the Ohio iintil 

 this question is settled. 



From the vicinity of Moundsville, W. Va., down to the mouth of the 

 Little Kanawha, at Parkersburg, the present Ohio appears to be following 

 the line of an old stream, whose main gradation plain, now pj-eserved as 

 terraces along the valley borders, descends from about 800 feet at New 

 Martinsville to but 700 feet at Parkersburg. Tlie remnants are not con- 

 spicuous in the Ohio Valley, but are well preserved on many of the tribu- 

 taries. 



The general width of the Ohio Valley from Mounds\dlle down to St. 

 Marys, W. Va., is 1 to 1^ miles, though near Ravens Rock it is less than a 

 mile, and in the vicinity of the villages of Moundsville and New Martins- 

 ville it exceeds 2 miles. From St. Marys down to Parkersburg the width is 

 1^ to 2 miles. In explanation of the remarkable expansions at Moundsville 

 and New Martinsville, J. P. Chaplin, a civil engineer residing at New Mar- 

 tinsville, has suggested an unusual dip of the rock strata. In the 4 miles 

 above New Martinsville, where the valley is exceptionally wide, the strata 

 dip eastward at the rate of 80 feet per mile, which is nuich greater than in 

 the portions of the valley immediately abo-ve and below this expansion. 

 Chaplin states that the strata at Moundsville have a marked di]) southeast- 



