ST. JOHNS OR SALAMONIE MORAINE. 513 



In the vieinit}^ of St. Johns, Ohio, the moraine for several miles pre- 

 sents a very sharp knob-and-basin topography with numerons knolls 30 to 

 50 feet in height. An esker ridge or chain of ridges occurs in this belt 

 southwest of Fryburg, the trend of which is northwest to southeast, or 

 nearly at right angles to that of the moraine. The chain is more than a 

 mile in length, and the southeastern terminus is in a marshy plain near the 

 outer border of the moraine. The esker has a general height of 15 to 20 

 feet and width of about 20 rods. It is along the line of this esker that 

 Pusheta Creek finds a gap in the moraine through which it passes from the 

 outer to the inner border plain. The gap as well as the esker was probably 

 produced by the agency of subglacial waters. There are numerous low 

 knolls bordering the esker and filling up and obscuring, to some extent, 

 the trough in which it lies. 



Near Botkins the moraine becomes feeble in exjoression, and for seA'^eral 

 miles west from that village consists of low knolls dotting a nearly plane 

 surface, the knolls occupying less than half the surface and having a height 

 of but 10 or 15 feet. Near Maria Stein the moraine assumes greater 

 strength and from that village westward to the State line, and for 12 or 14 

 miles into Indiana, it has a somewhat uniform swell-and-sag topography. 

 The knolls are low, usually falling below 20 feet in height, and with a 

 few exceptions their slopes are gentle, but nearly the whole surface is 

 undulatory. 



Southwest of Balbec, Ind., a sharp belt of hills appears that follows 

 the line of a valley or depressed tract which crosses the moraine from north- 

 east to southwest. Several knolls rise abruptly to a height of 60 to 80 feet, 

 and form a chain in line with and lying in the valley. They do not assume 

 the peculiar ridge form of the esker, but are nearly conical. Their sum- 

 mits rise but little above the portion of the crest adjacent to the valley in 

 which they lie, but their form shows clearly that the valley was excavated 

 before the knolls were deposited in it, there being basins and sags com- 

 pletely inclosed among the knolls or shut in between them and the borders 

 of the valley, while the slopes of the knolls are hummocky and irregular, 

 as is the fashion in hills built up by the ice sheet, but which could not well 

 be produced by drainage erosion. This valley is narrow (one-eighth to 

 one-fourth mile wide) and nearly filled with the gravel knolls throughout 

 its entire course, but it expands at the inner border into a broad, marshy 



MON XLI 33 



