56 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
and New Haven, to Fort Wayne, where it forms parallel lines on the 
opposite sides of the old river which once flowed out of Lake Erie; 
thence it passes eastward through Van Wert, Delphos, Findlay, etc. 
A higher and equally continuous ridge les back of this, passing from 
Hudson, Michigan, on the left bank of the St. Joseph’s river, to Fort 
Wayne, and on the south side of the Maumee, running south-easterly 
to Lima and Kenton. This ridge he does not consider to be an old lake 
beach, but rather a swell of the Erie clay determined by a buried mo- 
raine. The conjecture seems very plausible, except that it is hardly 
necessary to suppose that a moraine of gravel and bowlders here under- 
lies the Erie clay, since this clay—if I am correct in my ideas of its 
genesis—when unstratified and a bowlder clay, is itself true moraine 
material. It would not be strange if we should find this accumulated in 
unusual quantities along certain lines within the lake basin, where the 
reach of the glacier was for a long time constant, and where circumstances 
were not favorable for its being washed away. The controlling influence 
which this St. Mary’s ridge—as it 1s called by Mr. Winchell—has exerted 
over the flow of the St. Joseph’s and St. Mary’s rivers, would seem to in- 
dicate that it was a feature in the original topography of the country 
when left bare by the retirement of the lake waters. 
The second beach of Mr. Gilbert’s series runs closely parallel with the 
first, and is often confounded with it. The third beach, with an altitude 
of 165 feet, passes through Delta, Ridgeville, (Henry county) to Defiance ; 
thence eastward to Tiffin. This, also, Mr. Gilbert supposes to be a beach 
line traced along the slope of a swell of Erie clay, over a buried moraine; 
a suggestion which I would emend as before. It will be noticed that this 
swell—but not the ridge—had the same influence on the courses of the 
Tiffin and Auglaize as the former one on those of the St. Mary’s and St. 
Joseph’s. 
Mr. Winchell recognizes six parallel ridges in the Maumee valley, 
which he names the St. John’s, the Wabash, the St. Mary’s, the Van 
Wert, the Leipsic, and the Belmore ridges; his Van Wert ridge being 
identical with Mr. Gilbert’s beach No. 1; his St. Mary’s ridge being the 
same with Mr. Gilbert’s upper moraine, having an altitude of from 354 
feet at Hudson, Michigan, to 322 feet at Lima. This is certainly not an 
old lake beach, and should not be included in the same category. The 
same is true of his higher ridges, the Wabash, 350 to 408 feet, and the 
St. John’s ridge, 886 to 490 feet above the Lake. These upper ridges of 
Mr. Winchell’s series are altogether distinct, in their external characters 
and in their composition, from the lower ones, and have evidently been pro- 
