176 J. F. NEWSOM 
it originally entered the Ohio near New Albany, its course below 
Rockford (C, Plate VI) would have been along the strike of easily 
eroded shales, and directly to the Ohio, a distance of fifty miles 
from Rockford. It is 150 miles southwest from Rockford to the 
mouth of the Wabash, through which East White River at present 
reaches the Ohio, and one-third of this distance is across the 
strike of resisting limestones and sandstones. It is obvious, 
therefore, that East White River could not have been captured at 
or below Rockford by a stream which flowed to the southwest 
across those hard strata. Moreover, there is no evidence to show 
that the former course of the stream was directly into the Ohio — 
at New Albany. 
Reversion, owing to elevation of the strata to the east and 
northeast is not regarded as a probable explanation of the lower 
course of White River, even if it be supposed that the original 
course of that stream was toward the east or northeast.' 
The second hypothesis is as follows: It presupposes that 
prior to the ice invasion, the upper portion of East White River, 
(viz., east of the present mouth of the Muscatatuck) flowed 
either north or northeastward, or possibly emptied directly into 
the Ohio at New Albany—in any event that it flowed generally 
parallel with the Knobstone hills, east of those hills, and did not 
cut through them; that short tributaries of this main stream 
entered from the west, occupying about the courses of the East 
White and Muscatatuck rivers for fifteen miles above the present 
junction of those streams, but flowing in the opposite direction; 
that these short eastward flowing streams formed the triangular 
cul de sac in the Knobstone hills, in the center of which stand the 
Brownstown Knobs (Z, Plate VI) with the Silver hills of Scott 
county (D, Plate VI) projecting east of the main line of hills; 
that west of the Knobstone escarpment the general drainage to 
the southwest was the same as at the present time? and that a 
'The details of the preglacial drainage north and east from Rockford are obscured 
by the drift. The general preglacial contour of this part of the country, however, 
must have been about the same as that of the present time. 
2In Monograph XXXVITT, U.S. Geol. Surv., Pl. IX, Mr. FRANK LEVERETT 
shows the supposed preglacial westward drainage of this region. 
