654 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
we learn the following surprising facts: The creek at the point above 
named, and at a comparatively recent date, left the broad valley which it 
had been working out for itself through unnumbered thousands of years, 
and turned sharply to the southward, flowing now in a narrow channel 
often not more than two hundred feet in width at the base, bottomed 
with rock, and bounded by precipitous cliffs not less than three hundred 
feet in height. After following a south-east course for three miles, it 
turns again to the north-east, and regains its old valley two miles west of 
the south line of Chillicothe. : 
The new channel, then, is about five miles in length, has an average 
width at base of about three hundred feet, is entirely free from Drift de- 
posits, and is bedded and bounded by rock. As has been already said, 
the old channel is unmistakably distinct. The turnpike above named 
follows the old valley to the crossing of the North Fork of Paint Creek, 
and from that point the last named stream occupies the old valley alone 
for three miles, when the main stream returns from its detour to its 
former bounds. In other words, the former junction of the North Fork 
and the main creek was at the point where the turnpike now crosses the 
North Fork. 
To the questions, when and how was this important change in the 
drainage of the county effected, it is easy to return a probable answer. 
The old valley of Paint Creek, from Bainbridge to the crossing of the 
North Fork, above named, has a general course of 40° north of east. The 
valley of the North Fork, on the other hand, has a general direction of 
25° south of east. They meet, therefore, at an angle of about 65°. The 
valley of the North Fork, bearing to the south-east, was in the general 
line of advance of the glaciers that covered this portion of Ohio, as is 
amply proved by the direction of the strise and grooves which are still 
left upon the surfaces of the harder rocks over which these glaciers 
slowly traveled. The valley must then have been occupied by one of 
the southernmost prolongations of the continental glacier under which 
all of the northern portions of the State were buried. On the other 
hand, the north-easterly direction of the valley of main Paint Creek ren- 
ders it impossible that it could have been thus occupied. When now 
the rigors of the long winter of the Glacial Drift began to be relaxed, 
and the swollen drainage of the country sought once more its former out- 
lets, Paint Creek, both from its freedom from glacier occupation and from 
its more southern location, would first become filled with water. The 
ice-wall of the North Fork glacier must, however, have shut out the 
stream from its old channel, and, as a consequence, the waters would 
have set back from the western ‘bank of the North Fork in a lake, the 
