One Township's Yesterdays Chapter II  

ERAS OF THE MANIFEST THINGS
The handiwork of God is manifest in these things. And Paul the Apostle said, in his Epistle to the Romans, "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.

ICE HAD BEEN SUPREME in this region for a period, the extent of which baffles the imagination. With the melting of the glacier began the eras of the manifest things, those tangibles that we know today. A deluge must have resulted from the dissolving of that vast ice sheet. When the deluge subsided there remained great marshes, 'lakes and ponds, rivers and rushing streams, moraines and drifts, and those strange kettle-holes and sink-holes, found in Lake Maxinkuckee and smaller bodies of water, and in the country 'round about.

The glacier itself left its impress on the land. It left, conspicuously, those numerous boulders, rounded and smoothed by the action of the moving ice. The surface of the land, in many parts of this region, was strawn [strewn] with such boulders, often worn into symmetrical shapes. The early settlers, and the farmers ever since, waged relentless war upon them. Many were removed from the fields, many remained. Of those removed, a great number found their way into the foundations of houses and other buildings, were used far various construction projects, were segregated in rock-piles in fence corners and other out-of-the-way places, or were utilized to fill gullies: and "blow-outs" where erosion had begun its devastating work.

Strange as it may seem, there were not many boulders to be found in the lake bottom of Maxinkuckee when scientists not many years ago sought for them, but at the northeast corner of the lake, where there are high shores and practically no beach, were noticed a good many granits [granite] boulders of various sizes, likewise a few masses of postglacial conglomerate. Boulders were also seen, scattered here and there, along shore in front of the old Lake View Hotel, where, at the base of a high bluff, no beach was to be found, only short patches of sand.

A great proportion of the State of Indiana is a vast and undulating plain of glacial drift and accumulations. There exists a complex system of morainic [moronic] hills and ridges. The moraines or raised ridges of boulders and various kinds of drift, are to be seen lying "like dead waves upon the surface of the ocean." The rocks underlying are sedimentary and have never been violently disturbed by earthquake or volcanic action. Their position indicates, however, that at some comparatively recent date in geological history they were "gently lifted into a very flat arch, the crest of which extends from Union County to Lake County," this township being fairly within its range.

The glacier bestowed valuable gifts upon the Lake Maxinxuckee [Maxinkuckee] region in the form of many kinds of sails, brought down by the ice sheet and deposited about the lake. The soil about the lake, broadly speaking, is composed chiefly of sand, with a few small, isolated areas of clay, generally with a considerable portion of sand intermixed. The soils in the catchment basin of the lake have been classified as

• gravelly sandy loan,
• Marshall sandy loam,
• Miami sand,
• Miami clay loam,
• and muck.

The first of these usually contains a high percentage of gravel, and frequently small glacial boulders. Numerous small stones are scattered through the subsoil of gravelly or sandy clay. About the lake there are irregular ridges composed of rounded knolls, the sail of which is often quite gravelly. Granite boulders, scattered over the knolls and ridges, are frequently found. Deposits of the drift period cover this area, generally to a great depth. Deep borings, made by geologists nearly fifty years ago, reached no stratified rocks. No such rocks are outcropping. The surface soil, for the most part, varies from muck to a very light, warm soil. Underlying the loamy top-soil are gravels, sands and boulder clays.

Sand Deposit.
In the geological report of the 6tate for the years 1885-86, nearly fifty years ago, W. H. THOMPSON, assistant State Geologist, says that the beds of the streams in this section "are usually in the grey or bluish till common to our glacial deposits, and are covered with a stratum of washed gravel, sand and boulders. The terraces of the Yellow river are very interesting in this county and Starke, especially those composed of a fine yellowish sand which appears to be identical with that of Lake Michigan. This sand is most prevalent in the southwestern part of Marshall county, while it runs in great waves and ridges entirely acropss [across] Starke to the bank of the Kankakee."

"Between the Yellow river and the Tippecanoe there is a low divide in the form of a heavy swell of the drift deposits," THOMPSON reported. Varying drainage conditions, into one river or the other, are due to "the undulations in the grand mass of the drift, probably caused by recessions of the glacier, or whatever power was urging southward this vast silicious [siliceous] conglomeration known as boulder till." Nowhere in Indiana is this slow, as it were, and jerking process of drawing back better shown. The Yellow River valley is simply a great furrow between well-defined waves of this glacial mass in which the immediate bed of the stream is cut, and from side to side of which it has shifted through the long series of years since the melting of the ice.

Geologist THOMPSON thought that the superficial deposit of boulders resulted from some agency acting subsequent to the force which urged the great mass of glacial matter down upon Indiana. "No doubt this post-glacial, or rather this secondary agency," he said, "was dual, being a combination of water currents and floating ice-bergs." The boulders, he found to be more numerous upon the surface of the drift than throughout its mass. Wells and borings supported this assumption.

A Glacial Lake.
Maxinkuckee, a typical glacial lake, located near the Southwestern angle of the Saginaw Moraine, is surrounded by a country in which are found interesting evidences of Aeolian action. The era of the winds is a fascinating one. but time and space prevent tarrying and giving to the subject the full consideration it no doubt deserves.

The rolling topography of Miami sand constituency, evident in this region, resembles to a large extent, in form and appearance, sand dunes, and in all probability much of it was formerly old sand dunes on which plants became established and checked the action of the wind. Some of the land even now is shifted about by winds. Farmers today are still very much aware of this tendency, and are troubled by wind erosion working havoc on their lands. Sometimes considerable portions of their land possessions are shifted to other areas, even to adjoining farms, and mostly where the wind-driven sand is least needed. In many cases, farmers have made efforts to halt the further progress of "blow-outs" by means of fills and entanglements of brush, fence wire, junk, and, among other odds and ends, even worn-out "flivvers" that once were the pride of the selfsame farm.

So continued, through uncounted centuries, the eras of the, manifest things, the things that bear evidence today of those long-ago periods of stupendous change.