The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-04-26
TOP SOIL HERE
DEPOSITED BY
LAST GLACIER
Prof. Hole Says Huge Flow
Succumbed in This Section
During Trip South.
By ROSCOE 8. FLEMING

6y hOSCOE b. FLEMING
Somewhere between 1000 and 35, 900
years ago, a great glacier, the last Of
several, crept down from the North
in an effort to sweep the American
continent into the gulf stream, says
Prof. Allen D. Hole of Earlham
college
But, on line which runs across the
middle of Wayne county, ard reaches
from Logan county, Ohio, to Henry
county, Ind, it gave up the ghost"
in the warm rays of the prehistoric
sun, and died, depositing its burden of
millions of tons of loan, clay and
boulders throughout the district
All the top soil of most of Wayne
and Preble counties, most of the hills
around Glen Miller park, and several
ridges across the counties. including
the long ridge called Jackson's Hill,
were part of the burden which the
glacier pushed this far south and
dropped.
Left Lincoln Rock.
Part also, was the Lincoln rock at
Glen Miller, another great rock south
of town as large as a city building,
and the hundreds and hundreds of
tons Of boulders from those as large
as a shed to those the size of a fist,
which dot the hillsides and are heaped
in great piles on many farms of Wayne
and Preble counties, and line the
roads solidly in many parts of the
latter.
Before the last glacier, there had
been four flows. Traces of the first
two have never been discovered in
Wayne county, and nowhere else ex-
cept under the deposits of the last
two.
They probably melted before they
reached this far south. The fourth was
also apparently a minor flow, not
leaving many traces of it's passage
here.
Third Reached Ohio.
The third reached the Ohio river,
on the depression which afterwards
became the bed of the great river, and
in several places pushed beyond it.
Split Rock, in the river, near Aurora,
Ind, is often pointed out as the south
most limit of glacial flows on the
continent at least in comparatively
recent times.
The third glacier left a line from
Greensburg, Connersville and Brook
vile to Hamilton, Ohio, and spread
over all this part of the state a hard
compact yellow or blue clay soil call.
ed Fill" The banks OF the White
water gorge, which furnished a good
cross-section OF Wayne county's crust.
show this hard clay layer part of the
way down.
Left Many Boulders.
Then the fifth flow-the important
one came down, carrying looser,
loamier soil and many boulders, which
1t left as it moved. In western part of
the county it left ridges, including
Jackson's Hill, and the glacier evident.
ly split into two lobes, just about at
! Richmond, the one extending over the
central part of Indiana, and the other
the maker of the great "moraines,' -
or hills of glacial soil which distrib.
uted boulders and loan from Logan
to Wayne counties.
Part of the work of the last glacier
was to put the Whitewater river in
the western part of Richmond instead
of east of town. There has always
been a large stream flowing south
near the present site Of Richmond, bu,
all evidence shows that this stream
once flowed east of the present city
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