NOTES ON THE OHIO VALLEY IN SOUTHERN 

 INDIANA. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In recent years much work has been done on the streams and 

 abandoned stream channels leading through or from glacial 

 regions. The upper Mississippi, the Illinois, the lower Missouri, 

 many smaller streams in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and 

 Iowa, the Wabash, and the upper Ohio have been examined 

 more or less carefully, but on the lower Ohio, and more par- 

 ticularly that part between the falls at Louisville and the mouth 

 of the Wabash, little or nothing has been done. 1 



The present paper deals with a portion of this unexamined 

 region in Spencer county, Indiana. Spencer county is in the 

 southwestern part of Indiana. With reference to the Ohio, it is 

 about 130 miles below the falls at Louisville and 95 miles above 

 the mouth of the Wabash. 2 The region is particularly interest- 

 ing, because it is near the middle of the base of the unglaciated 

 triangle of Indiana. 



The following paper will discuss (1) an old cut-off of the 

 Ohio, (2) a series of river sands and gravels which seem to be 

 Tertiary, (3) a probable extension of the Lafayette sea up the 

 Ohio valley, (4) peculiarities of the loess on the bordering 

 hills, including an apparent twofold character of the loess, and 

 (5) a record of continental oscillation furnished by the deposits 

 at this point. 



The three physiographic regions. — Physiographically, Spencer 

 county may be divided into two parts, a plain and a hill region. 

 The plain may be subdivided into three parts. First, a broad, 



^our. Geol., Vol. Ill, " Preglacial Valleys of the Mississippi," by Frank G. 

 Leverett, pp. 745 and 759. 



2 For general location see Figs. 1 and 2. Enterprise is in the western part of the 

 region described. 



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