An Ecological Siud\ of Buckeye Lake. ■ 11 



fheir onion farm. Thirteen years ago this was a bog forest of 

 Soft Maple and Swamp Ash with an undergrowth of Willow 

 and Poison Sumac. The drove well at Mr. Brown's barn shows 

 seventeen feet of peat, three feet of yellow clay, then hard pan 

 covering the gravel from which comes the supply of running 

 water. Impatiens stems were found in the muck at a depth of 

 three feet. 



The till plain bordering Buckeye Lake on the west has an 

 elevation of 890 feet close to the lake, while the lake surface 

 is 892 feet above sea level. 



The eastern portion of Buckeye Lake is surrounded by 

 moraines in which large boulders are quite frequent. The land 

 has a distinctly hill and valley topography, however, the highest 

 elevation within 5 miles of the lake is 1,100 feet, no higher than 

 the crest of the w^ater shed to the west ; but the surface is more 

 deeply dissected and the drift cover is thinner, hence the greater 

 prominence and ruggedness of the hills. 



Just east of the southeastern extremity of the lake, the rim 

 of hills is dissected by a valley a mile and one-half wide. Just 

 east of Thornville Station a morainal loop crosses the valley 

 and completely blocks it except for a narrow cut, which is now 

 occupied by the parallel tracks of the Shawnee branch of the 

 Zanesville and Western railroad from the south, and the Balti- 

 more and Ohio from the north. The cut whose present surface 

 is 900 feet above sea level, is partially filled with overflow clays 

 and gravel. 



Jonathan Creek has its source in the hills immediately south 

 of the cut and here the present valley of Jonathan Creek is two 

 miles wide. The cut above mentioned is very evidently an over- 

 flow channel for the lake. The latter from its shape, position 

 with reference to the valle}^ of Jonathan Creek and the morainal 

 loop must be regarded as a finger lake, formed in the upper por- 

 tion of the old valley of Jonathan Creek by the morainal loop 

 at Thornville Station.-' The waters of the lake cut thru the 

 moraine at Thornville Station,*'"' then later found a lower out- 

 let to the north into the South Fork of the Licking River. The 



