714 GLACIAL FOEMATIONS OF ERIE AND OHIO BASINS. 



occupies its axis. In this narrow portion, which extends through pai'ts of 

 Goodland, Burnside, and North Branch townships, in Lapeer County, the 

 banks are steep, as is also the west bank southward through Imlay Town- 

 ship. But below the village of North Branch the width is seldom less than 

 a mile, and there are fewer places where the bordering bank is sufficiently 

 steep to suggest cutting by the ciu'rent. 



Taylor argued in his paper that the narrowness of the Imlay outlet, 

 as compared with that at Fort Wayne, seems to show that the foi'mer never 

 carried the whole discharge from Lake Maumee, but that the Fort Wayne 

 outlet also probably continued active. In a recent letter, however, he 

 points out that a newly found fragment of the beach at the southwest 

 corner of section 3 of Goodland Township overlooks the col and stands 20 

 to 25 feet above it. From this fact he suggests that the capacitj'' of the 

 narrow part of the outlet may have been largely compensated by the 

 rather unusual depth of the water passing- through it, and that there may 

 have been after all little, if any, water left to flow out past Fort Wayne. 

 The fact that the lower reaches of the Imlay outlet, as lately seen in Clin- 

 ton and western Shiawassee counties, have an average width of a mile, 

 thus comparing favorably with the width of the Fort Wayne outlet, gives 

 some added strength to this view. Still, so far as could be made out 

 from the faint featm'es of the second beach near the head of the Fort 

 Wayne outlet, it seems probable that this outlet did, in fact, continue to 

 carry off some part of the discharge after the Imlay outlet had opened. 



MAUMEE BEACHES, FROM THE FORT WAYJSTE TO THE IMLAY OTITLET. 



Before a discussion of these beaches is begun a few explanatory state- 

 ments seem necessary concerning the difficulty of discriminating between 

 the first and second beaches. The strength of neither beach is great, 

 except in places favorable for strong wave action. Where the lake plain 

 inside of a beach slopes at the rate of 15 or 20 feet to the mile a well- 

 defined ridge of wave-washed material or a cut bank may be expected, but 

 where it becomes reduced to 10 feet or less per mile it can with difficulty 

 be discerned, even though the surface, as stated by Gilbert, is remarkably 

 adapted to receive the impress of the waves. In the case of the Maumee 

 beaches conditions of slope are in places favorable for the strong develop- 

 ment of both beaches, in places for but one, and in places for neither. As 



