478 C. H. GORDON 
flows in an old channel which probably received the glacial 
waters when the ice front had retreated to the position of the 
Detroit moraine at Melvin and poured them westward into the 
Imlay outlet. Near Columbiaville there are indications that the 
waters escaped southward toward Lapeer, following the line of 
the headwaters of the Flint River, while another smaller trough 
appears to lead southwest, crossing the line of the C. & G.T. 
Railway just west of Elba. The latter is well situated to con- 
stitute the continuation of the Imlay channel, but the elevation 
of the bottom of the valley, which is about 800 feet, or thirty 
feet above that of the Imlay at Columbiaville according to 
Taylor, would seem to militate against that conclusion. The 
relations here are somewhat obscure and more detailed investi- 
gations are needed to settle the question. 
The Vernon outlet— Below Columbiaville the Flint River 
crosses a moraine which is seemingly the Saginaw, equivalent 
of the Toledo moraine. At Flint also the river with an abrupt 
turn breaks through a northward lying parallel ridge which we 
take to be the equivalent of the Detroit moraine. The valley 
of the stream where it crosses the first mentioned moraine is 
much wider than where it crosses the second and has evidently 
been occupied for a longer time. Before passing through the 
break in the second moraine it receives a branch from the south- 
west called Swartz Creek. This stream flows in an old channel 
which was followed by the writer many miles westward along 
the south border of the moiaine which we may here call the 
Vernon moraine, from the village of that name which is situated 
upon its slopes. West of Otterburn the Chicago and Grand 
Trunk Railway follows the valley bottom as far as Duffield, the 
stations here being nearly on a level with the valley floor. At 
Duffield the channel bears directly westward past Vernon. It 
was followed to a point about nine miles west of this place, or 
twenty-seven miles in all. The channel has a width of three- 
fourths of a mile and is covered in part by a black, mucky soil. 
In places where the drainage is not well established it is wet and 
swampy. At one point dredging revealed the presence of 
