ST. MARYS OR FORT WAYNE MORAINE. 573 



height. There is a ckister of sharp knolls east of Decatur, Ind., but few of 

 them exceed a height of 15 feet. They are abrupt and iuclose numerous 

 basins, and there is, in addition, an unusual number of surface bowlders 

 which add to the morainic expression. 



The moraine has been deeply channeled by water in the vicinity of 

 Fort Wayne. The most important channel is the lake outlet, which has, in 

 its passage through the moraine, opened a valley about 1 mile in width, 

 and 30 to 50 feet in depth, its depth at the head of the Maumee being 35 

 to 40 feet. 



A smaller channel, known as the Sixmile Channel, traverses the moraine 

 a few miles southeast of I'ort Wayne and furnishes a much more direct 

 course than the present one for the St. Marys River. It leaves the St. 

 Marys about a mile below Hesse Cassel, in section 7, Marion Township, 

 and passes in a course east of north to the Maumee River just west of New 

 Haven. Its summit is reported by Dryer to be but 10 feet higher than 

 the St. Marys River, and in flooded seasons the river discharges a portion 

 of its waters through this channel. Except at its north end, where it is 

 somewhat expanded, the channel has a width of only one-fourth mile, and 

 its banks are estimated by Dryer to be 15 feet in average height, though 

 the portion of the moraine on the east soon rises along the line of the Pitts- 

 burg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad to a height of 40 feet, and that on 

 the west to a height of 60 feet above the channel. The low tract which 

 this channel follows was apparently occupied for a time as an outlet for 

 Lake Maumee, as indicated more fully on a later page. 



The continuation of Sixmile Channel is westward down the St. Marys 

 River to section 26, Wayne Township, about 3 miles south of Fort Wayne. 

 The river there turns northward while the old channel continues westward 

 and joins the outlet in the southwest corner of the same township. This 

 part of the channel is one-fourth mile or more in average width and stands 

 about 15 feet above the present river bed. It is a marshy tract, apparently 

 filled to some depth with sediment, and has distinct bluffs only on its 

 southern border, where there is an abrupt rise of 15 to 20 feet. 



In the triangular tract_ bounded by this marshy channel, the old lake 

 outlet, and the St. Marys River, there is a district comprising several square 

 miles which stands considerably above the channels, its highest points 



