204 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



low-water mark, and the bottom of the trough has not 

 been reached." In the valley of Mill Creek, also, "in the 

 suburbs of Cincinnati, gravel and sand were penetrated 

 to the depth of 120 feet below the stream before reaching 

 rock." But from the general appearance of the channel, 

 Professor J. F. James was led to surmise that a rock 

 bottom extended all the way across the present channel 

 of the Ohio, between Price Hill and Ludlow, Ky., a short 

 distance below Cincinnati, which would preclude the 

 possibility of a preglacial outlet at the depth disclosed in 

 that direction. Mr. Charles J. Bates (who was inspector 

 of the masonry for the Cincinnati Southern Eailroad while 

 building the bridge across the Ohio at this point) informs 

 me that Mr. James's surmise is certainly correct, and that 

 his " in all probability " may be displaced by " certainly," 

 since the bedded rocks supposed by Professor James to 

 extend across the river a few feet below its present bottom 

 were found by the engineers to be in actual existence. 



In looking for an outlet for the waters of the upper 

 Ohio which should permit them to flow off at the low 

 level reached in the channel at Cincinnati, Professor 

 James was led to inspect the valley extending up Mill 

 Creek to the north towards Hamilton, where it joins the 

 Great Miami. The importance of Mill Creek Valley is 

 readily seen in the fact that the canal and the railroads 

 have been able to avoid heavy grades by following it from 

 Cincinnati to Hamilton. As a glance at a map will show, 

 it is also practically but a continuation of the northerly 

 course pursued by the Ohio for twenty miles before reach- 

 ing Cincinnati.- This, therefore, was a natural place in 

 which to look beneath the extensive glacial debris for the 

 buried channel of the ancient Ohio, and here in all prob- 

 ability it has been found. The borings which have been 

 made in Milk Creek Valley north of Cincinnati, show that 

 the bedded rock lies certainly thirty-four feet below the 

 low T -water mark of the Ohio just below Cincinnati, while 



