BLANCHARD OR DEFIANCE MORAINE. 611 



The chain of lakes and connecting' channels just outlined show a 

 decrease in altitude in passing from east to west. The channel in the 

 Vermilion drainage basin is estimated to have an altitude about 950 feet 

 above tide and descends about 25 feet to reach New Haven in the Huron 

 River Basin. The extensive New Haven Marsh, which extends westward 

 from the Huron Basin near New Haven to the head of Honey Creek (an 

 eastern tributary of the Sandusky), near Attica, stands about 925 feet 

 above tide, and probably represents nearly the level of the lake in the 

 Huron Basin. There was a descent of about 100 feet along Honey Creek 

 from this lake to the one in the Sandusk}^ Basin, for the outlet of the 

 latter near Carey is only 815 to 820 feet above tide. The descent along 

 this outlet from Sandusky Lake to Lake Maumee at Findlay was about 

 40 feet in a distance of 15 miles. 



The head of the outlet of Sandusky Lake is reported by Winchell to 

 carry a deposit of black muck ranging in depth from 4 or 5 feet up to 8 feet 

 or more, which is underlain by a marly or calcareous blue clay. These 

 deposits have probably accumulated since the channel was abandoned 



RELATION OF THE DEFIANCE MORAINE TO LAKE MAUMEE. 



Several references have already been made to the beaches and outlet 

 of the glacial Lake Maumee, but its relation to the Defiance moraine has not 

 been clearly stated. As the beaches and outlet are discussed in some detail 

 farther on, only the general relations to the Defiance moraine will now be 

 considered. 



When the Defiance moraine was traced by Grilbert, some thirty years 

 ago, it had not been determined whether the lake which dischai-ged through 

 the Fort Wayne outlet into the Wabash was held at its high level by the 

 ice sheet or by a land barrier. Gilbert seems at that time to have favored 

 the land-barrier hypothesis and considered the lake entirely postglacial, 

 while Newberry considered the ice dam formed by the retreating ice sheet 

 an adequate cause, and referred it to the closing part of the Glacial epoch. -^ 

 It soon became eiadent that the land-barrier hypothesis had no foundation 

 in the topography of the region, and attention was directed to the question 

 of the relation of the beaches to the moraines of the great ice sheet. Gilbert 

 took the lead in this investigation and discovered that the beaches do not 



'Geology of Ohio, Vol. I, pp. 549-552; Vol. II, pp. 8, 51, 52. 



