10 



direction from a common center. The Erie lobe along its 

 southern border presented a broad, and minor lobated border, 

 the smaller lobes having pushed forward into the valleys of 

 the streams entering the basin, the main body of the ice 

 passing westward along the general axis of the basin. The 

 Saginaw lobe being a long wedge shaped mass hemmed in on 

 the west by the mighty Michigan lobe, and upon the east 

 receiving the full force of the Erie mass in its westward move- 

 ment. A part of the Huron lobe passing out at the foot of the 

 basin, commingled its ice and load of earth and boulders, with 

 the Erie lobe, from this fact, we find drift material from the 

 Lake Superior and northern Huron regions, such as drift-copper 

 and porphyry conglomerate scattered over both Indiana and 

 Ohio. And it also accounts for the heavy deposit of drift over 

 the northeastern counties of Indiana, which attains a depth in 

 places of from four to five hundred feet. 



These ice tongues or lobes, after emerging from their 

 basins, maintained their lobate characteristics, yet were united 

 one with the other. The most southern line reached by the ice 

 during this last movement being a comparatively few miles 

 below the great lakes, where it remained for a long period. 

 The ice advancing with its load of earthy refuse from the north, 

 being melted away as rapidly as it advanced to this line, laid 

 down its burden of accumulated material, forming great ranges 

 of hills or moraines, both terminal and lateral, definitely mark- 

 ing the outline of each glacial lobe. And, as the summers began 

 again to predominate over the winters, the ice gradually with- 

 drew to the north and disappeared from this locality, possibly 

 forever. North of the terminal moraine, marking the advance 

 of the last ice sheet, will be found almost all of our small 

 inland lakes, which is the distinguishing mark of beauty of this 

 locality. The lakes which once dotted the older glaciated sur- 

 face have long since filled by erosion or silted up. Before the 

 northern ice overran our country, the surface soil of Indiana 

 was composed of clay and fine sand, with lime,, slate and sand- 

 stone pebbles; no granite boulders or pebbles at that time were 

 present, they having been carried from the north and spread 



