154 GEORGE D. HUBBARD 



through the terminal moraine and proceed across the old drift 

 to the Wabash, Ohio," or Mississippi Rivers. Among these 

 streams which rise within the moraine loop and find their way 

 out through it is the Embarras, to which the study now turns 

 Rising in several more or less swampy regions, or from tile 

 drains in Champaign county, and receiving several small streams 

 en route, the Embarras proceeds southward across the nearly 

 level tracts of the Wisconsin drift-sheet, and through several 

 minor terminal moraines, until it finally breaks through the large 

 Shelbyville moraine south of Charleston in a clear-cut youthful 

 gorge a hundred feet or more in depth. From this point it 

 continues a more quiet, meandering stream across the plains of the 

 Illinoian drift, to its debouchure into the Wabash River, near 

 Vincennes, Indiana. 



Through the early part of its course the Embarras makes its 

 way, leisurely in dry weather, but rapidly in rainy weather, along 

 open, stream-made ditches, or in semi-canals opened by dredging- 

 shovels, in a channel not large enough to carry the flood waters. 

 The stream can hardly be said to have a valley, only a channel, 

 in this part of its course, but after twenty-five to thirty miles 

 have been covered the ditch has become enlarged and a valley 

 formed, which gradually becomes wider and deeper until the 

 moraine is reached. During all this distance extreme youth is a 

 chief characteristic; the valley walls are very steep— so steep, 

 in fact, that landslides are common, and the side streams 

 are short. The main valley attains a depth of seventy-five or 

 eighty feet before it reaches the moraine and is cut in the drift; 

 but occasionally 'bed-rock is reached, and at such places the 

 valley often narrows to a few feet, and the stream goes through 

 a little rock-floored gorge with rapids or tiny cascades. In the 

 moraine the valley is perceptibly deeper, and near the southern 

 margin of it attains a depth of over one hundred feet, while 'at 

 several points within the ten or twelve miles through the moraine 

 the water runs on a rock floor, being definitely constricted within 

 a rock gorge at two points. 



As the stream comes out upon the older drift, the valley 

 decreases markedly in depth, and increases slightly in width. 



