15 



Louisville, and also had a marked tendency to dam the waters 

 and cause them to overflow a wide territory above, giving to 

 this region, the general appearances of a great lake having 

 occupied its territory. Tliird — At South Bend, a tributary one- 

 third its size was added to its volume. 



The principal tributaries of the great Kankakee, were the 

 Elkhart and Yellow rivers, draining from the Maumee glacier, 

 and probably the Tippecanoe river at a point where it enters 

 the southeast corner of Stark county; this I have not carefully 

 investigated, but which I think will probably be found to be a 

 fact, also what I am pleased to call, the great Dowagiac river, 

 now represented by the Dowagiac creek, which heads south of 

 Kalamazoo, Mich., but the waters of whose ancient stream 

 probably accumulated far north of that point, gathering all the 

 glacial waters from the eastern slope of the eastern lateral 

 moraine of the Michigan glacial lobe, forming a mighty glacial 

 river, flowing south to a point three miles north of Niles, Mich., 

 where it received a large tributary which had opened a way 

 through the lateral Michigan moraine, and was discharging its 

 waters from the Michigan basin, which had not yet found an 

 opening to the south, between the Michigan ice lobe and its 

 moraine. The Dowagiac river after receiving the overflow 

 waters from the Michigan basin, continued south and emptied 

 its waters into the Kankakee at the present site of the City of 

 South Bend. 



The old channel, where it empties into the Kankakee, is 

 three miles wide, with well-defined banks rising from fifty to 

 seventy-five feet above the bed of the valley, the valley having 

 been cut to bed rock and silted up about one hundred and 

 twenty feet, leaving the above mentioned banks yet remaining. 

 These great streams existed for long periods of time. The 

 Kankakee and the Dowagiac conveying the glacial waters dur- 

 ing the advance of the ice sheet, also during the period that it 

 stood at its most advanced point and during its withdrawal, and 

 until the Michigan ice lobe had sufficiently receded to allow 

 the waters along its eastern border to escape through the Des- 

 plaines opening. This promoted a rapid lowering of the waters 



