WABASH DRAINAGE SYSTEM. 195 



rence County. It di-ains the greater part of the elevated district in Brown, 

 Jackson, Monroe, and Lawrence counties. In its headwater portions, in 

 Brown County, the valleys are cut to a depth of 300 and in places 500 

 feet below the level of the neighboring hills, and a dendritic system 

 of drainage has been developed, which is strikingly in contrast with the 

 irregular and unsyrametrical drainage systems of the streams within the 

 drift-covered regions to the north and east. At its headwaters the valleys 

 have been filled to a marked degree by deposits of sand and gravel made 

 by streams issuing from the edge of the ice, which for a time overhung 

 the northern portion of Brown County. The valley is apparently filled to 

 nearly as great an extent as the j^ortion of the East White with which it 

 connects. Its rate of fall is more rapid than that of the East White, but 

 is less rapid than that of some of the large streams of the glaciated district. 

 The fall of the North Fork from Nashville, a few miles from its source, to 

 the mouth of the stream is only about 150 feet, or scarcely more than 3 

 feet per mile. 



Lost River, a tributary entering East White River fi-om the east in 

 southern Martin County, has a length of about 50 miles. This stream 

 receives its name from the fact that it flows for a few miles in a subterra- 

 nean passage in the St. Louis limestone. In times of freshet the stream 

 can not be entirely absorbed by the subterranean channel, and it then flows 

 on the surface in its former bed, which is now covered with a heavy forest. 



PATOKA RIVER. 



Patoka River, a distinct tributary of the Wabash, di'ains a narrow 

 belt along the south border of the drainage basin of East White River. 

 The stream has a length of over 100 miles, but its drainage basin nowhere 

 exceeds 20 miles in width. Its som-ce is in the hills of the Chester or Kas- 

 kaskia sandstone, in southern Orange County, at an altitude of about 800 

 feet. Its mouth is just below that of White River, at an elevation of 375 

 feet above tide. This drainage system is made up of three small drainage 

 systems, which were formerly distinct and discharged northwestward into 

 the White and East White rivers. The upper system embraced the por- 

 tion above Jasper, Ind., the old divide being at the northeast border of 

 that village. The middle system embraced the portion between Jasper and 

 Velpen, Ind., and the lower the part from Velpen down to the vicinity of 

 Princeton. The old drainageway there turned north to White River, near 



