498 GLACIAL FORMATIONS OF ERIE AND OHIO BASINS. 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



This belt is seldom sharply morainic, but consists of swells or short 

 ridges with gentle slopes, the rise ou the slopes being 5° to 10° or less. 

 The topography is, however, of a characteristic morainic type, the swells 

 and ridges being of irregular form, independent of the present system of 

 drainage, and interlocking in an intricate manner. There is, aside from 

 the swells and short ridges, a basement ridge which is developed nearly 

 continuously from the Miami Canal westward to the interlobate moraine in 

 southern Whitley County, Ind., but is not so well developed from the 

 Miami Canal eastward. It is this ridge which gives to the moraine its relief 



In places there are series of parallel ridges closely associated. Thus, 

 south from Portland, Ind., there is a succession of ridges each trending east 

 and west, or in harmony with the moi'ainic belt, over which one rises, in a 

 distance of 5 miles, to an elevation, just south of Bluff Point, of fully 130 

 feet above the Salamonie plain. Such ridges occur elsewhere along the 

 moraine but are not the most common type of topography, swells and 

 irregular-shaped elevations being far inore common. These ridges often 

 determine the course of creeks flowing from east to west or west to east 

 in line with the trend of the moraine. The upper course of State Line 

 Creek furnishes an illustration. Such streams eventually find a gap in the 

 ridge which affords a passage either to the inner or the outer border plain. 

 State Line Creek, for example, flows across the inner border 'plain into 

 "Wabash River. 



The swells seldom exceed 25 feet, and are usually but 10 to 15 feet in 

 height, but the surface is all more or less undulatory. Near Granville, Ind., 

 however, in the vicinity of the northern end of the Muncie esker described 

 above, there are knolls and basins with abrupt oscillations of 40 to 60 feet. 

 The basins at the nortli end of the esker are, in several instances, fully 20 

 feet in depth, and are completely landlocked. Another prominent portion 

 of the moraine overlooks Estey Creek from sec. 30, T. 22, R. 11 E. It 

 stands 75 feet or more above the creek. North and west from Estey Creek 

 the swells are onl}^ 20 to 30 feet higher than the creek. 



North of Eaton a tendency to ridging in a north-northwest to south- 

 southeast direction was noted, the ridges being 20 feet cr more in height 

 and 150 to 200 yards in width, and of various lengths, from one-fourth mile 

 up to a mile or more. 



