154 
Ohio Biological Survey 
never more than ten feet deep at its beginning, but its walls are almost 
vertical. The stream has reached the Eden shale, and the character of 
the valley has changed. The fall is rapidly receding, carrying the gorge 
back into the open valley through the Maysville limestone. The walls 
of the gorge are dripping with moisture in many places. But the shale 
erodes so rapidly that almost no vegetation is found upon it. Here and 
there are patches of algae, and occasionally some moss (Hypnum sp.). 
Near the top of the gorge, or wherever the banks are not rapidly cutting, 
Fig. 26. Lower course of Indian creek, bordered by a typical marginal vegetation. 
are patches of Impatiens and Hydrangea. Instead of the bluff xerophytes 
found higher up the stream, there are saplings of sugar maple, ash and 
white elm (see fig. ^o). This narrow gorge is mesophytic. But the 
mesophytic forest gives way higher up the slope to the xero-mesophytic 
forest described above. 
The length of this gorge is largely dependent on the altitude of the 
Eden-Maysville contact, and of the flood plain of the river, into which 
this stream is flov/ing. 
