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INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES 



Sand and Gravel. When there is a noticeable decrease in the 

 current, sediment is deposited. Gravel and sand in the order of 

 their size and specific gravity, and then the coarsest silt, and last 

 the very fine silt, is the order of deposition. Trees on and near the 

 river bank tend to check the current, causing it to drop the heaviest 

 sediment close to the river, thus building up a natural levee, while 

 the finer silt is carried out to enrich the valley land. There was 

 a tendency for corn stalks to retard the lower current, causing sand 

 to be deposited that otherwise might have been carried on farther. 

 Fences generally had sand deposits on the down stream side. Wire 

 fences caught the floating debris, forming a sort of dam that tended 

 to check the current, and in this way causing a deposit of sand on 

 the lower side, and in some instances on both sides like snow drifts. 



It was not uncommon to see as much as twenty-five acres 

 covered with from a few inches to five or six feet of sand and gravel. 

 There were several places where there was as much as sixty and even 

 eighty acres covered with sand. Just below Waverly there was a 

 tract of ninety acres covered. About a mile above Spencer there was 

 about sixty acres, while in the first bend in the river to the south, 

 below Spencer, there was a very large amount of sand. Just below 

 Newberry, there was a tract of about twenty acres, and just below 

 the bridge at Freedom, on the east side of the river, there were about 

 ten acres. (See Figure 11.) Also below 'Blue Hole,' at Wash- 

 ington, there was as much as sixty acres covered with sand, from 

 a few inches to four feet in depth. In most of these cases it will 

 take several years to reclaim this land and get it in good productive 

 condition. 



Silt. Where the water was backed up over a considerable area, 

 silt was deposited. The amount of sediment deposited depends on the 

 length of time that the water stood on the ground and the amount 

 of sediment in suspension. The greatest amount of sediment was 

 deposited at the fork of the two branches of White River and at 

 the junction of Muscatatuck with the East Fork of White River. 

 A considerable amount of silt was deposited in the outside of the 

 large meanders, as in the loop at Worthington, where Eel River 

 joins White River. The current from Eel River had a tendency to 

 hold back that part of the White River current that followed the 

 old channel, thus depositing silt and fine sand. Figure 12 shows 

 a small valley just south of Spencer on the east side of the river, 

 in which the back water stood, causing silt to be deposited more 

 than a foot in depth. Mud cracks were developed here in an in- 



