Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
One of the most interesting of these is illustrated upon the accompanying
map, which will need little description.
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Map showing the effect of the glacial dam at
Cincinnati (Claypole). (From Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological
Society.)]
While tracing the boundary-line of the glaciated area in the Mississippi
Valley during the summer of 1882, I discovered the existence of
unmistakable glacial deposits in Boone County, Kentucky, across the Ohio
River, from Cincinnati.[CH]; These deposits were upon the height of land
550 feet above the Ohio River, or nearly 1,000 feet above the sea, which
is about the height of the water-shed between the Licking and Kentucky
Rivers. As the Ohio River occupies a trough of erosion some hundreds of
feet in depth, and extending all the way from this point to the mountains
of western Pennsylvania, it would follow that the ice which conveyed
boulders across the Ohio River at Cincinnati, and deposited them upon
the highlands between the Licking and Kentucky Rivers, would so obstruct
the channel of the Ohio as to pond the water back, and hold it up to
the level of the lowest pass into the Ohio River farther down. Direct
evidences of obstruction by glacial ice appear also for a distance of
fifty or sixty miles, extending both ways, from Cincinnati.
[Footnote CH: The existence of portions of this evidence had previously
been pointed out by Mr. Robert B. Warder and Dr. George Sutton (see
Geological Reports of Indiana, 1872 and 1878).]
The consequences connected with this state of things are of the most
interesting character.
The bottom of the Ohio River at Cincinnati is 432 feet above the
sea-level. A dam of 550 feet would raise the water in its rear to a
height of 982 feet above tide. This would produce a long, narrow lake,
of the width of the eroded trough of the Ohio, submerging the site
of Pittsburg to a depth of 281 feet, and creating slack water up the
Monongahela nearly to Grafton, West Virginia, and up the Alleghany as far
as Oil City. All the tributaries of the Ohio would likewise be filled
to this level. The length of this slack-water lake in the main valley,
to its termination up either the Alleghany or the Monongahela, was not
far from one thousand miles. The conditions were also peculiar in this,
that all the northern tributaries rose within the southern margin of the
ice-front, which lay at varying distances to the north. Down these there
must have poured during the summer months immense torrents of water to
strand boulder-laden icebergs on the summits of such high hills as were
lower than the level of the dam.
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