The accompanying illustrations will give a better idea than words can do of the celebrated glacial grooves on the hard limestone islands near Sandusky, in the western part of Lake Erie. Through the interest aroused in them by an excursion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, while meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1888, the Kelly Island Lime and Transport Company, of which Mr. M. C. Younglove is the president, has been induced to deed to the Western Reserve Historical Society for preservation a portion of one of the most remarkable of the grooves still remaining.
The portion of the groove preserved is thirty-three feet across, and the depth of the cut in the rock is seventeen feet below the line, extending from rim to rim. Originally there was probably here a small depression formed by preglacial water erosion, into which the ice crowded the material, which became its graving-tool, and so the rasping and polishing went on in increasing degree until this enormous furrow is the result. The groove, however, is by no means simple, but presents a series of corrugations merging into each other by beautiful curves. When exposed for a considerable length it will resemble nothing else so much as a collection of prostrate Corinthian columns lying side by side on a concave surface.
The direction of these grooves is a little south of west, corresponding to that of the axis of the lake. This is nearly at right angles to the course of the ice-scratches on the summit of the water-shed south of this, between the lake and the Ohio River. The reason for this change of direction can readily be seen by a little attention to the physical geography. The highlands to the south of the lake rise about seven hundred feet above it. When the Ice period was at its climax and overran these highlands, the ice took its natural course at right angles to the terminal moraine and flowed southeast according to the direction indicated by the scratches on the summit; but when the supply of ice was not sufficient to overrun the highlands, the obstruction in front turned the course and the resultant was a motion towards Toledo and the Maumee Valley, where in the vicinity of Fort Wayne an extensive terminal moraine was formed.
Fig. 35.—Same as the preceding. (Courtesy of M. C. Younglove.)
The much-mooted question of a succession of glacial epochs finds the most of its supporting facts in the portion of the glaciated area lying west of Pennsylvania. That there have been frequent oscillations of the glacial front over this area is certain. But it is a question whether the glacial deposits south of this distinct line of moraine hills are so different from those to the north of it as to necessitate the supposition of two entirely distinct glacial epochs. This can be considered most profitably here.
The following are among the points with reference to which the phenomena south of the moraine just delineated differ from those north of the line: