BEACHES OF LAKE MAUMEE. 723 



along the inner border of that moraine, there being bnt few points in the 

 latter situation where it attains the average development of the former. 



The difference in strength or in continuity was recognized by the 

 early settlers in the location of roads. The portion outside the Defiance 

 moraine, from West Unity, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, Ind., was largely used as 

 a highway and known as a "ridge road," but the portion in Michigan lying 

 inside the moraine was utilized only for short distances, the gravel ridges 

 being too disconnected to give the beach much advantage over border 

 districts. The difference in strength may also be appreciated from the fact 

 that the Maumee beaches had not attracted attention in Michigan, while 

 the Behnore beach had been known from the early days of settlement. 

 The courses of the Maumee shores in Michigan were in large j^art first 

 determined by the writer in 1899, when he extended his studies into that 

 region; but in Ohio and Indiana the Maumee shores were as early and as 

 well known as the Behnore. 



This difference in strength is not due to a more favorable situation for 

 the development of a beach in the part outside the Defiance moraine, for the 

 situation there, on the whole, seems less favorable, the slopes being in many 

 places too gradtial for effective wave action, a condition that seldom obtained 

 in the part inside the Defiance moraine. The difference seems largely 

 attributable to the greater time in which Lake Maumee washed the portion 

 of the shore outside the Defiance moraine. 



VARIATION IN ALTITUDE. 



It has been known for some years that the shores of the glacial lakes 

 which occupied the basins of the present Laurentian lakes have been sub- 

 jected to a differential uplift, which causes the beaches to stand higher on 

 the northern and eastern borders of the lake basins than on the southern 

 and western. While uplift has probably produced the principal variation 

 in altitude, there are variations not dependent upon deformations of the 

 earth's crust which should be mentioned. 



The lakes now occupying these basins show very little fluctuation 

 thi'ough tidal action, the amount being but a few inches, and it is probable 

 that the glacial lakes were not affected to any great degree. This factor 

 may therefore be dismissed, as it would cause no perceptible variation in 

 the altitude of the beaches. But fluctuations through variations in rainfall 



