No. 30. 



ROCKY RIVER. 



river between these two points is 15 miles, or 5.4 times the air- 

 line distance. This is a more extraordinary digression than that 

 of Tennessee River, which deserts its ancestral course to the Gulf 

 and flows northwest into the Ohio, multiplying the length of its 

 course 3^3 times. The fall of Rocky River between Sherman 

 and its mouth is 240 feet or 16 feet to the mile, and were the 

 river able to take a direct course the fall would be 87 feet to the 

 mile. The possibility of capture would seem to be imminent 

 from these figures, but in reality there is no chance of it, for an 

 unbroken mountain ridge of resistant rock lies between the two 

 forks of the river. This barrier is not likely to be crossed by any 

 stream until the whole region has been reduced to a peneplain. 



Measured from the head of its longest branch, Rocky River 

 is about 19 miles long and falls 950 feet. Of this fall, 710 feet 

 occurs in the first 4 miles and 173 feet in the last 2% miles of its 

 course. For the remaining distance of 12^/2 miles, in which the 

 riv.er after flowing south doubles back on itself, the fall is 67 

 feet, or slightly less than 5^ feet to the mile (fig. 3, A). 



(flj /faxnf source. 

 in Hew for* 



' 



: Present elevations 1aKen from U.S.G.S. map 

 '-/ino^n roch I ere Is. from dr (I I holes by RE Da Kin 

 Assumed buried channel 



titles - 



Horizontal Scale 



FIG. 3. Profiles of present and preglacial Rocky River. 



Elevations at a, b, c and i are from U. S. G. S. map. Eleva- 

 tion at d is estimated from R. E. Dakin's records. Eleva- 

 tions at e, i, g and h are from R. E. Dakin's records. The 

 U. S. G. S. figures for the same are enclosed in parenthesis. 



