with Raised Beaches of Lake Erie. 293 



cover the whole interval from Bellevne to Van Buren where 

 the table shows its highest altitude to be.* 



The general appearance of this beach is much like that of 

 the Yan Wert, though it is on the whole somewhat stronger. 

 Throughout much of its course it stands 6-8 feet above the 

 plain north of it, and in places 15-20 feet. In the vicinity of 

 Yermillion river and thence west nearly to Norwalk, and again 

 in the cape-like projection in the vicinity of Bellevue it is 

 quite sandy, but as a rule it contains but little sand. In pits 

 at Bascom, a village between Tiffin and Fostoria where the 

 beach attains the extraordinary height of 215 feet above Lake 

 Erie, the gravel contains a remarkably large percentage of an- 

 gular or but slightly worn pebbles, and elsewhere along the 

 beach the rounding of the pebbles is slight compared with that 

 in the present beach of the lake. This beach, in common with 

 the upper and third beaches, contains much poorly assorted 

 material and where the deeper parts of the beach contain well 

 assorted gravel, there is usually a capping of clayey gravel two 

 feet or more in thickness in which bowlders are sometimes 

 imbedded. The beaches were apparently short lived and 

 rapidly formed otherwise the pebbles would be more water 

 worn and the clayey ingredients less conspicuous. It is not 

 improbable that throughout much of the year the borders of 

 the lake were fringed with floe ice and the presence of bowl- 

 ders in the beaches may be due to this agency. 



The view that the waters of the lake at the time it occupied 

 these raised beaches were cold, seems sustained by the extreme 

 rarity of the remains of Molluscan life in its beaches. Careful 

 observation and inquiry while on the ground failed to bring to 

 light any evidence of such life, but after leaving the field I 

 was told by a farmer who formerly lived on the upper beach a 

 few miles east from Yan Wert that he had seen " clam shells " 

 in its sands. This observation needs verification, however, by 

 some competent student before much weight can be attached 

 to it, for untrained observers often call the brachiopod shells 

 of the quarries "clam shells." These beaches contain such 

 shells that were washed up from the glacial drift, which in- 

 cludes material derived from the neighboring rock formations. 

 Since the absence or scarcity of fossils is not always due to the 



* This portion of the beach characterized by high altitudes, is on the crest and 

 eastern slope of the "Cincinnati axis," which leads from the Ohio river near Cin- 

 cinnati northerly across the western part of Lake Brie, (Geo!, of Ohio, vol. vi, map 

 opposite p. 48.) It will be a question of some interest to determine whether or 

 not this coincidence is due to recent uplift of this axis. I have not sufficiently full 

 data on the altitudes of lower beaches than the Leipsic to enable me to determine 

 whether or not they also show a rise in passing over the Cincinnati arch. In case 

 they do it is to be presumed that the arch has been slightly uplifted since the 

 beaches were formed. 



