EROSION" ON ROUGE RIVER 



337 



a little over a mile from there is the junction of the middle Eouge and 

 the North branch. The lower Eonge flows east and east by north for 17 

 miles before meeting the main stream; the middle Eouge is about 20 

 miles long, half of this an east-southeasterly course on the old lake floor. 

 The part of the North branch examined flows mainly south for 6 miles 

 by the road from Sand Hill to the junction with the Middle branch. By 

 the river the distance would be three times as great. All three branches 

 are represented on the Wayne, Michigan, sheet of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey topographic map, where the meanders are for the most part 

 omitted, as may be seen by comparison with the sketches here given. 



Figure 3. — Fluod-iilaiii. ileuiidcrs, and Scaurs on tlie Lowe'' Rouyc. 

 TIic iivea iudiealcd is in AVayno county, Canton township, sections 25 and 2(!. 



Lower Eouge 



I'his stream has an ideal valley for the study of scaurs. The country 

 has few trees, is level but for the 15-foot bluffs bounding the flood-plain. 

 The river is filled with water every spring all across the valle}^, taking 

 then a width of 500 feet, but dwindles in summer to a mere trickle of 

 water that may be easily jumped across anywhere. The bed on which 

 the stream floAvs, in mean stages, is 15 to 20 feet wide. Eegardless of 

 Avidth, this branch of the river is never clear. Scaurs are always in view 

 on looking down valley ; rarely on looking up. An electric railroad runs 

 beside, giving easy access to every part. The behavior of the stream in 

 its valley is typically shown in the sketch map of a mile of its course 

 about two miles Avest from Wayne. The photograph, figure 1, was taken 

 in this neighborhood. The scaurs are uniformly 10 per cent of the 

 length of each bluff. Three-quarters of them occur on the right-hand 

 border of the flood-plain. 



