OWL CREEK DRAINAGE BASIN. 161 



old divide between Mount Vernon and Grambier, cutting off a spur that 

 projected from the north, and separating a valley that leads southward 

 from Mouut Vernon from one that leads southwestward from Gambler. It 

 was also noted by each that another old divide is crossed a few miles below 

 Gambler, near Millwood. Concerning these changes Read remarks:^ 



For a part of the distauce between Mount Vernon and Gambler the stream has 

 made for itself an Independent channel through rock spurs projecting fi'om the north, 

 but the course of the old river can be tx-aced a little to the south of it. At Gambler 

 it is in the ancient bed of a channel extending southward toward Martinsburg, now 

 filled with gravel and sand hills, and occupied bj' Big Run, which flows northward in 

 a direction opposite to that of the old stream, and becomes a tributary of Owl Creek. 

 At Millwood also the channel of Owl Creek is narrow, rock bound, and recent, but 

 the old channel is easilj' traced to the south of the massive bluffs of the Waverly 

 conglomerate, where it is now filled with modified drift hills of gravel and sand. 



The old channel referred to by Read leads past Danville to Mohican 

 Creek at Gann, and is utilized by the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus 

 Railroad. It is evident from the remarks just quoted that he thought the 

 old course of drainage froin Gambler was southwestward, but it is not so 

 clear that he thought the old channel that connects Mohican Creek and Owl 

 Creek also had a southwestward discharge. To the writer and also to 

 Tight it seems necessary to give the old channel a southwestward discharge, 

 for it appears to be continuous with the channel to the southwest that 

 discharged in that direction. 



Read thought that there was a line of southward drainage from Mount 

 Vernon to Newark through a lowland tract followed by the Baltimore and 

 Ohio Railroad, but he appears to have overlooked evidences of an old divide 

 on this line south of Utica. Upon examining this lowland in 1890 the writer 

 found low rock hills in its midst about 3 miles south of Utica, which seem 

 to bar out completely a southward course for the old drainage. At that time 

 no clue to the old course of drainage could be found, but subsequently it 

 was ascertained by Tight, tlu'ough data furnished by wells, that the dis- 

 charge may have been westward from near Utica past Homer to the Scioto 

 Basin. The drift filling is so great along this westward line as to completely 

 conceal its course. At Homer the di-ift has a depth of 400 feet. 



It now seems probable that the greater part of the Owl Creek drainage 

 basin above Mount Vernon formerly had a southward discharge to the bend 



' Some typographical errors in Read's description are here corrected. 

 MON XLI 11 



