THE PREGLACIAL DRAINAGE OF OHIO. 49 



This is not conclusive, but it shows no rock bottom at a 

 level lower than Wooster and Orrville, and provides an outlet 

 for the waters of Wayne county to Rocky river, and thence to 

 the lake between the Coal Measures and the Waverly. 



Ascending from this well to Medina village the elevation is 

 513 feet above Lake Erie, and crossing the divide between Rocky 

 and Black rivers I find the surface elevation at Lodi to be only 

 282 feet; thence up to West Salem the register gives 575; at 

 Polk 640; above Ashland 650; at Savannah lakes 700; north of 

 Mansfield 862; and by the registered grades of 892, 912, 932 

 and 952 I am on the Belleville hills, and ascending to the south 

 of Independence I find myself on one of the highest pinnacles 

 in the State, about 1000 feet above Lake Erie. 



Note the graded ascent of the crest that divides the waters, 

 or rather note the descent, and remember that this decline in 

 elevation means the gradual dip of a plateau, the face of which 

 presents north and east. 



The streams that drain this basin all trend east or southeast, 

 toward one central axis, and this axis was primarily Prof. 

 Newberry's current from the south that swept around this head- 

 land to Sandusky ; and next, during the putting down of the 

 Coals, the forecasts of these channels supplied fresh water to the 

 coal marshes in the Allegheny basin: and lastly, after the Coal 

 Measures were elevated to their present level, the axis channel 

 became the trough to carry the waters from both the Coal and 

 Waverly hills to the great pre-glacial river that ran through 

 what is now the basin of Lake Erie. 



This large hydrographic basin is now made up of six smaller 

 ones; the Clear Fork, Rocky Fork, Black Fork, Jerome Fork, 

 and Muddy Fork, of the Mohecan river; and the mysterious 

 basin of Killbuck from Wooster to Burbank, where a glacial 

 dam breaks its association with Black river, and fills a scallop or 

 "Water-wier" in the Waverly, below the present surface of 

 Lake Erie. These streams all run in broad valleys, with flood 

 plains near a mile wide; they are separated by high table lands 

 which showed — before the glacier's advent — evenly bedded rock 

 strata, but now they are crushed like a ship in arctic ice. The 

 bed and trend of these streams conspire to impress you — not 



