MOHICAN CREEK AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 163 



tant are Muddy Fork, Black Fork, Jerome Fork, and Lake Fork. The 

 sources of each of these tributaries is in a morainic system that here consti- 

 tutes the continental divide. It is evident that this morainic system is north 

 of the old divide, for it stands on a slope facing toward Lake Erie. Its 

 altitude is 200 to 300 feet lower than the hills a few miles to the southeast. 

 Furthermore, it is traversed by buried valleys, 250 feet or more in depth, 

 which lead northward from the high upland just referred to toward the 

 Lake Erie Basin. These valleys are now nearly concealed, but well borings 

 have shown their great depth. The old divide on each of these headwater 

 streams of Mohican Creek was probably but a few miles south of the present 

 divide, as the lower courses of the streams, as indicated below, appear to 

 connect with a valley that leads eastward toward the old Cuyahoga Valley; 

 but as yet the old divides have not been located with precision. At the 

 present time the streams flow over passes or cols which were once much 

 lower than the hills of that region. Probably some of these cols stood 

 below the general level of the drift filling. In such cases they may per- 

 haps be located by well borings or by careful examination of the valley 

 contours; though, unfortunately, the drift in these old valleys is aggregated 

 in knolls and ridges that greatly obscure the preglacial topography. On 

 one of these tributaries. Muddy Fork, the valley filling was such that the 

 stream made a detour of several miles near Lucas through a hilly district 

 north of the old valley. This serves to show that there were low passes by 

 which the drainage systems could easily be reversed or otherwise changed. 

 J. H. Todd, has recently called attention to evidence that the 

 lower courses of these tributaries of Mohican Creek had an eastward dis- 

 charge.-^ There is a continuous valley or lowland with an average width 

 of about a mile, followed by the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago 

 Railroad from Mansfield to Wooster, Ohio. It follows down Muddy and 

 Black Forks (except for the detour of Muddy Fork above noted) to 

 Loudonville, thence eastward across the divide between Black and Lake 

 forks and across the divide east of Lake Fork into Killbuck Valley near 

 Shreve, up which it passes to Wooster. East of Wooster there is a great 

 drift accumulation rising nearly 200 feet above Killbuck Valley, but it 

 is Todd's opinion that the old valley continued in that direction about 10 

 miles, to the vicinity of Orrville, where a valley is found with very low 



'Ohio Acad. Sci., Special Papers, No. 3, 1900, pp. 49-55. 



