112 GLACIAL FORMATIONS OF ERIE AND OHIO BASINS. 



The deposits on tlie Licking and Kentucky occur on what are termed 

 bv Campbell "intermediate valleys," whose floor is about 300 feet above 

 the present streams, and but 100 feet below the general level of the border- 

 ing uplands. Miller calls attention to the presence of pebbles from Car- 

 boniferous rocks, and notes that they are restricted to deposits on those 

 tributaries of the Licking and Kentucky which have their sources in the 

 Carboniferous formations. From these facts the inference ^ is drawn that 

 they were deposited by streams which flowed in the present direction of 

 drainage. He has traced the deposits down the Kentucky Valley to the 

 vicinity of Frankfort, or across the crown of the Cincinnati arch. In a letter 

 to the writer he reports that the altitude of the deposits declines from about 

 900 feet in the vicinity of Lwine, Ky., to 800 feet near Frankfort. They 

 stand, therefore, at the latter point about 1*^0 feet higher than the deposits 

 above noted on the Ohio, and seem likely to be of similar age. 



As ^et no attempt has been made to trace the deposits from Frankfort 

 to the Ohio, but it is thought by Miller that the course will continue down 

 tlie Kentucky rather than depart from that valley. The wide gaps made 

 by basins which have been subsequently formed along the course of the 

 Ohio will necessarily render it difficult to establish full connection between 

 the deposits of the Kentucky and those near Cannelton, on the Lower Ohio. 

 There seem, however, to be no reasonable grounds for doubting that there 

 was such a connection, and the degraded condition of the valley border 

 from the mouth of the Kentucky to the deposits farther down the Ohio 

 seems of itself sufficient ground for inferring that the course of drainage 

 at the time these deposits were made was that which the Ohio still pursues. 

 So far as the writer could discover, no better course is available. A course 

 about as direct is found in a line leading westward from Madison, Ind., 

 along the Muscatatuck to the East White and White River, and thence down 

 the Wabash to the Ohio. That there was an ancient westward drainage 

 along the East White River is shown by the presence of Tertiary gravel 

 near Shoals, Ind., that was brought in from the east. But tlie East White 

 has a smaller channel than the neighboring part of the Ohio, and no channel 

 has been discovered near Madison to connect the Ohio with the Muscatatuck 

 Valley. It therefore seems a less favorable course than that down the Ohio. 



The gap to be filled between the Tertiar}^ deposits on the Licking and 

 those on the Lower Ohio is still wider and seein.s more difficult to bridge. 



