GLACIAL BOUNDARY IN OHIO. 167 
In extending the above remarks to the prairie region west of Ohio, 
they should be qualified by reference to the loess, which is a water 
deposit of varying depth, overlying the glacial gravels throughout a 
large portion of the Mississippi Valley. This probably indicates’ a de- 
pression of that valley, so as to form a great lake on whose bottom this 
sediment was deposited. From the position of this sediment overlying 
glaciated material, the subsidence of the region is known to have taken 
place since the ice withdrew. JI know from personal observation that 
glacial material does underlie this loess throughout a considerable por- 
tion of Southwestern Indiana, and in Missouri, in the neighborhood of 
St. Louis. 
‘It is evident that the ice movement of the glacial period pretty 
much made the most fertile portions of this State. It determined the 
character of the soil, the contour of the country, the minor lines of 
drainage, and thus in a thousand ways had to do with the pleasure, the 
health and the prosperity of the present and prospective population. 
As I marked off the glacial limits on a map of this State, the Secretary 
of the Board of Agriculture at once said that that was the southern 
boundary of the great wheat-producing portion of the State, and ex- 
pressed an earnest desire that Ohio might secure as thorough an ezxami- 
nation of the glacial phenomena within its bounds as has been done for 
New Jersey. Certainly, if one is to buy a farm in Ohio, he should 
pray that it be either in a river valley, or north of the terminal mo- 
raine. Of course, this statement must not be taken without qualifica- 
tions; since, to this, as to all general rules, there are exceptions. There 
is as good land in the unglaciated portion as in the glaciated; but 
there is not so much of it in proportion, and upon the average it is not 
so good. The glaciated portion is nearly all first-class soil, and is 
almost boundless in depth. The contrast between the glaciated and 
the unglaciated areas of Ohio appears upon the pages of the Annual 
Crop Report. According to the report for September, 1882, the aver- 
age production of wheat per acre in the glaciated area, reckoned by 
counties, is in many cases twice as great as in the unglaciated. The 
average production per acre in the whole glaciated area is about four- 
teen bushels, and in the unglaciated, nine bushels. 
MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 
The abrupt changes in direction of the glacial boundary line merit 
a word of discussion. These are most manifest near Falmouth, on Long 
