Proceedings of the Ohio State Academx of Science 251 



acquired through generations of ancestors engaged in a struggle 

 for momentary support. This training has made them more val- 

 uable as American farmers than as laborers in factories. 



In still another direction, we iind the lake ridges entering 

 into life relations. For industrial purposes, such as building- 

 blocks and concrete, they furnish a supply of gravel and sand; 

 the extensive deposits of lake and glacial clays have afforded 

 material for brick and tile. 



We find a specially interesting physiographic reaction in the 

 influence of the lake-made phj-siography on railroad construc- 

 tion. In this area, the Cuyahoga was the largest river tributary 

 to these lakes. Into the lake at all stages, the Cuyahoga built an 

 extensive delta and as the lakes dropped from one stage to an- 

 other, tributary streams have incised this delta which is made up 

 of sand, coarse and fine, and gravels of varying texture. It 

 yields readily to stream work, consequently deep channels were 

 developed. Its lack of stability near the walls of a stream is 

 obvious ; for this reason railroads have always hesitated about 

 constructing high bridges. 



All railroads centering at Cleveland have either east-west 

 courses bordering the lake, or north-south courses paralleling the 

 Cuvahoga valley. The Lake Shore, as the name implies, be- 

 longs to the former class. One -other east-west road, however, 

 the Xickel Plate, approaching the city from the east, turns south- 

 ward near the south side of the delta and descends through the 

 valley of Kingsbury run to the level of the present Cuyahoga 

 river in ascending from which, on the western side, it uses an- 

 other tributarv valley. The Big Four uses this same valley west 

 of the Cuvahoga. 



The railroads from the south, that is, the Baltimore & Ohio, 

 Pennsylvania, Wheeling and Lake Erie, with the exception of 

 the Pennsylvania, enter the city through tributary valleys cut 

 in the old delta. The Pennsylvania, however, follows Mill creek 

 to Newburg, then it skirts the Maumee beach for two miles and 

 gradually descends the delta slope to the lake front; the Balti- 

 more & Ohio has a more uniform gradient as it follows the edge 

 of the river channel. 



