5 14 GLACIAL FORMATIONS OF ERIE AND OHIO BASINS. 



tract a mile or more in width, known as the "Loblolly," which is con- 

 tinuous from the moraine northeastward to the Wabash River. It is 

 probable that this valley, together with the knolls deposited in it, is the 

 product of subglacial waters moving southwestward toward the ice margin, 

 the cutting of the valley having been accomplished prior to the deposition 

 of the knolls; but both the excavation and refilling are thought to have 

 been included within the time when the ice sheet occupied this nroraine. 

 McCaslin described this valley and its included knolls in his report on 

 Jay County,^ but did not ascribe its excavation and subsequent filling to a 

 subglacial stream. Instead he assumed them to have been produced by 

 a stream of postglacial age. He ascribed to tlfis hypothetical free-moving 

 stream an action such as no stream could have unless it had confinement 

 such as was afforded by the ice sheet. Furthermore he supposed the stream 

 to have continued southwestward across the Mississinawa moraine and then 

 southward to "CoUett's glacial river," a supposition that seems entirely 

 unwarranted, for the Salamonie at that time afforded a lower outlet for the 

 stream toward the northwest. As stated on page 449, an abandoned valley 

 crosses the Mississinawa moraine along the line indicated, but this valley 

 is thought to have been abandoned as soon as the ice sheet had withdrawn 

 sufficiently to permit the waters to escape to the Wabash through the 

 Salamonie River. 



Northwestward from the sharp line of knolls just described the moraine 

 presents for several miles a characteristic swell-and-sag topography, its 

 swells rising with gentle slopes to a height of 10 to 20 feet. Between 

 Keystone and Warren there is a nearly continuous ridge a mile or more in 

 breadth whose crest and slopes are shghtly undulatory and carry shallow 

 basins as well as low swells. The ridge is easily traced beyond Warren to 

 the vicinity of New Lancaster, but its crest and slopes are less undulatory 

 than southeast of Warren. From New Lancaster to the Wabasli River 

 no definite continuation of the moraine could be found, though the surface 

 of the country is slightly more undulatory than the plain south of the 

 Salamonie. 



On a preceding page an inner belt was stated to follow the northeast 

 side of Rock Creek from near Keystone nearly to the mouth of the stream. 



1 Twelfth Ann. Kept. Geol. Survey Indiana, 1882, pp. 161-163. 



