22 
Earl R. Schejfel 
of this kame area. They overlie their base like railway embank- 
ments crossing uneven topography.® From the region of the Bluffs 
chey proceed southward about a mile ending bluntly on the Miami 
Valley. The crest-lines are sinuous in both vertical and horizon- 
tal directions, though the general course is in almost a straight 
line. The esker form is at times modified by knolls, rarely by 
distinct gaps. The crests are narrow and the sloping sides steep, 
apparently taking the angle of repose normal to the debris of 
which they are composed. Both the eskers and the kamy topog- 
raphy westward rest upon a base rising above the valley of the 
Miami. To the southeast, across the roadway from the southern 
ends of the eskers the kamy topography continues for about a 
mile. This topography shows a curious branching and anasto- 
mosing of ridges. Though at present suggestive of kames it is 
quite possible that it represents modified glacial phenomena of 
other than kame origin, A more elaborate study of this will be 
made in a future paper. 
Bearing on archcEology. There has been a tendency in the 
past to explain formations of the esker type as the work of Indians 
or Mound Builders,^® an error not without justification. Evidence 
of design in the Dayton ridges is patent to the uninitiated. They 
suggest an immense fortification composed of lines of earthworks; 
the knolls serving as lookout and signal stations, gaps for ingress 
and egress, and short connecting embankments as roadways from 
ridge to ridge. Several references are made in local histories^^ to 
the work of Mound Builders found in what is now Calvary Ceme- 
tery (C. C., fig. i). Of these the following quotation is the most 
comprehensive: South of Dayton on a hill one hundred and 
sixty feet high is a fort enclosing twenty-four acres. The gateway 
on the south is covered in the interior by a ditch twenty feet wide 
and seven hundred feet long. On the northern' line of embank- 
ment is a small mound from the top of which a full view of the 
country for a long distance up and down the river may be 
® Chamberlin and Salisbury^ loc. cit.^ p. 375. 
G. H. Stone, loc. cit., p. 35. 
History of Montgomery County, Ohio (1882), p. 216. 
