face. The great gorges and stream channels that had been 

 eroded during the period of elevation were filled with river 

 drift. When we compare the drift area north of the lower 

 boundary of the last ice sheet, with the drift surface south of 

 this line, a great difference in facial contour will be noticed. 

 And when we contemplate the fact that from twelve to fifteen 

 thousand years have passed away since the laying down of the 

 northern area with so little effect upon its rugged surface, it 

 may not be a stretch of imagination to place the intervening 

 time between the two ice periods at one hundred thousand 

 years, rather more than less. 



Vast forests had again covered the uplands, and peat bogs 

 had filled the depressions, all to be again crushed, ground, and 

 scraped from the surface by the last great ice advance. 



This brings us to the culmination of the physical energies 

 which gave us the present surface contour of St. Joseph county, 

 or our home. 



The conditions necessary to produce a humid atmosphere 

 and great snow falls, were again present. Over the regions 

 north of the great lakes, snow and ice began again to accumu- 

 late, until it reached thousands of feet in thickness, and from 

 its own weight began to move as a tenacious, semi-liquid mass, 

 down the southern slope. As it approached and entered the 

 great lake basins, its onward movement was directed largely by 

 the trend or direction of their basins. The Maumee or Erie 

 lobe took a west southwest course, while from its southern 

 border several smaller lobes pushed south and southwest. The 

 ice lobe passing through the Huron basin, moving almost 

 directly south, making its exit from the southwest margin, 

 scooping out that part of the basin known as Saginaw Bay, 

 which largely concerns our immediate locality. The great 

 lobe that entered the Lake Michigan basin passed almost 

 directly south. Of the ice lobes to the west of the Michigan 

 basin, we will not refer, as they do not immediately concern 

 this locality. When we have spoken of the direction of each 

 lobe, we refer to their axis, as the ice movement in these great 

 basins was forward and to either side, radiating in an advance 



