Wadmond—Flora of Racine and Kenosha Counties. 799 
the Mississippi, through the Fox River, which crosses the area 
from north to south near the western boundary, and empties 
into the Illinois River. Except in the extreme eastern part, 
the drainage of Kenosha County is almost entirely tributary 
to the Mississippi through the Eox and Des Plaines Rivers, 
Pike Creek being the only Lake Michigan tributary of any 
importance and that confined to the northeast corner of the 
county. At some points the elevation constituting the water¬ 
shed is so slight as to be scarcely perceptible; a notable ex¬ 
ample of this is to be found in the headwaters of the Des 
Plaines. River, a tributary of the Illinois, and those of the 
Root River, which flows into Lake Michigan. Both have their 
rise in an extended marshy valley, so nearly level that it is 
ofttimes difficult to determine which way the water flows. 
Case (Wisconsin Geology and Physical Geography) calls at¬ 
tention to the fact that the rivers of the eastern half of the area 
are peculiar in their tendency to run for considerable distances 
parallel to the shore of Lake Michigan before finally entering 
it, their courses being determined by a system of low moraines 
of retrocession, lying between the great terminal moraine and 
the Lake. Indeed, the Des Plaines River never breaks through 
its bordering moraine, but continues southward into the Il¬ 
linois. 
The U. S. Dept, of Agriculture Soil Survey of Racine 
County, Wisconsin, issued October 28, 1907, is freely quoted 
from in the following paragraphs on topography and soil forma¬ 
tion. Much the same conditions obtain for Kenosha as for 
Racine County. 
The western part of both counties presents the appearance 
typical of a glaciated region. The terminal moraine of the 
Michigan glacier entered Wisconsin from Illinois in the south¬ 
westerly part of Kenosha Co., and extended slightly west of 
north to the vicinity of Burlington, Racine Co. At this pointi 
it encountered a second lobe of the Michigan glacier, forming 
an inter-lobate moraine, each glacier contributing material to 
its formation, and thus accounting for the range of morainic 
hills in the western parr of the counties, which have imparted 
to this section a varied and attractive topography. Among the 
