llUih Level Depot^its of Kenfurkji Rivers. — Miller. 2<S7 
tide). The flood-plain character of the country is even more 
pronounced on the other side of the river. There, extending 
back ten miles or more — to the very base of the Cumberland 
plateau, in fact — and covering quite deeply in places the lower 
100 feet of the St. Louis limestone, are extensive deposits of 
this reddish or orange sandy loam, pebbly throughout. The 
hight of this beautiful valley ranges between 850 and 1,000 
feet above the sea, with the present Cumberland winding 
through it in the deep gorge 200 to 300 feet below. The edge 
<jf the plateau rises rather sharply from the valley with a 
lower 300 foot slope of upper St. Louis limestone, succeeded 
by 100 feet of Chester sandstone and shales, and is sur- 
mounted by a 200 foot precipitous escarpment of Carbonifer- 
ous conglomerate. This has probably been a line of retreating 
escarpment for ages, but the pebbles now strewn far and wide 
over this valley never owed their present position solely to the 
slow action of atmospheric decay. The slopes of this escarp- 
ment, and the tops of the limestone hills above 1,000 feet show 
scant traces of qviartz pebbles, though blocks of conglomerate 
are common. Below this level the evident fluvial deposits 
set in. 
There is an evident similarity between the deposits of the 
Licking, Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, these deposits in- 
creasing in thickness in the order named. The reddish-yellow 
loamy character is more pronounced on the Cumberland, but 
it is not wanting on the Kentuck3\ These facts, so far as 
they point to a community of cause for the submergence, mil- 
itate somewhat against the glacial dam hypothesis. Still the 
terminal moraine is not far to the north of the mouth of the 
Cumberland at the point of its most southern sweep in Illi- 
nois, and further investigation may reveal the fact that it was 
in some way responsible for the flooded condition of this river 
also. More facts must be collected, and especially must ob- 
servations be made at the mouths of these and other rivers 
emptying from the left bank into the Ohio river below Cin- 
cinnati, before the glacial (hini theory can be either set aside 
or sustained. 
