Quadrangles.-The area here described lies mainly in southwestern Ohio but extends south a few miles into Kentucky. It is bounded by meridians and parallels, extending from latitude 39 degrees north to latitude 39 degrees, 30 minutes north, and from longitude 84 degrees, 15 minutes west to 84 degrees, 45 minutes west. Its length is therefore one-half degree of latitude or about 34.5 miles and its width one-half degree of longitude, which is here a little less than 27 miles.
The area is about 930 square miles. As defined by the United States Geological Survey it consists of four quadrangles, named respectively, the Hamilton, the Mason, the East Cincinnati and the West Cincinnati (note 1) . A quadrangle is the unit area for detailed maps and is one-fourth degree each way. It is evident that these quadrangles throughout the United States have substantially the same length north and south (a degree of latitude being about 69 miles), but are broader in the southern part of the country where a degree of latitude is about 60 miles (at New Orleans) and narrower in the northern part where the meridians converge. A degree on the 49th parallel, the Canadian boundary, is 45.47 miles. Quadrangles are therefore not exact rectangles but trapezoids. The area here considered is about one-third of a mile broader on the southern boundary than on the northern.
Physiographic Provinces.-This area lies at the foot of a long northwesterly slope leading down from the mountains of Eastern United States to the Central Lowland. A large section of this lowland in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio is called the Till Plains, for reasons explained in chapters 5 and 6. The slope which rises eastward toward the Appalachian Mountains is the Allegheny Plateau and is much dissected by stream erosion. Southward from Cincinnati is a large unglaciated area which may be called the Interior Low Plateau. (note 2). Its northern edge is neither lower nor higher than the Till Plains which it borders, but as seen later, the distinction between plain and plateau is not based on elevation but on style of topography. The large natural divisions of the United States are known as physiographic provinces and their subdivisions as sections.
Located in terms of these natural divisions this area lies mainly in the Till Plains, but its southern end lies partly within the Interior Low Plateau ( Fig.2). The boundary between these two is the edge of the glacial drift and is not very sharp at this place. The Southern or driftless end of this area is, however, fairly representative of the topography of many thousand square miles in Kentucky and Tennessee. The northern part is less typical of the Till Plains in Ohio and Indiana because of its proximity to important drainage lines where small tributary valleys are numerous and deep. On this account it will be seen to partake more of the plateau character than is the case with the broad interstream plains of central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
Geologic Relations.-Located geologically this area is on the northern slope of the Cincinnati uplift, a slight upward bulge of the otherwise horizontal rocks. This upward bulge no longer appears as a rise in the surface, for erosion has planed it all down to a common level. But in doing so, the older and lower rocks were exposed at the surface near the center of the dome. These now appear on the geologic map (Fig. 3), in the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky. Around this center are found successively younger and younger rocks arranged in very ragged and irregular belts.
The trained geographer will get a satisfactory mental picture of the surface from the following summary statement in technical language: A structure of nearly horizontal thin-bedded limestone and shale, reduced to an almost perfect peneplain, uplifted to about 900 feet above the sea and trenched at least 400 feet by large through-flowing streams (Ohio, Miami, and Little Miami), dissected by tributaries in dendritic fashion almost to maturity near the major valleys but elsewhere young in the cycle following uplift; glaciated (except the southern border), without glacial erosion and with deposition sufficient to obliterate only the smallest valleys; the master streams displaced in parts by the ice, taking new courses which they have since retained. The larger valleys partly filled by till and glacial outwash, which have since been in part removed (note 3).
Plain and Plateau Distinguished.-Taken as a whole, the area is part of a widely extended plain. The essential characteristic of a plain is plainness, that is, it must be a nearly horizontal surface of small relief. It may be either high (like our western High Plains) or low. The essential characteristic of a plateau is a general level at a considerable altitude, sufficient to admit of deep valley cutting. It may be flat (like our western High Plains) or completely dissected by deep valleys (like most of West Virginia). Hence it follows that a plateau may also be a plain, or the uneroded parts of it may be plains. Again, a widely extended plain like much of Ohio and Indiana may have insufficient altitude to admit of deep valley cutting in the interior, but near its edge, or where trenched by great streams, its margin may be deeply cut by tributaries, that is, dissected in true plateau style. - There is therefore no inconsistency in speaking of this area as the edge of a great plain and at the same time speaking of it as a low plateau. No other use of terms could be even approximately consistent with customary usage.
In accordance with the above explanation, this area is part of the southern border of an extensive plain rising 900 feet (locally 50 or 100 feet more or less than that) above the sea; as described below, its edges are eroded in plateau fashion.
Drainage.-The area is drained by the Ohio and its tributaries. The master stream crosses in a deep valley near the southern boundary and is joined by the two Miamis from the north and the Licking from the south. The courses of these streams and their tributaries are all shown on the accompanying maps.
The valleys of these large streams, and several similar valleys not now occupied by streams, are 200 to 400 feet deep and one-half mile to 3 miles wide between abrupt bluffs.
Near these larger streams and certain large valleys which were former stream courses, the country is very hilly, made so by numerous tributary streams from 10 or more miles in length down to mere ravines and gullies which have cut deep into the bluffs. As a rule there is little or no flat upland between these smaller valleys. There are local exceptions (to be described later) due to the peculiar-history of the drainage of the region. Even where no flat upland is found, numerous hills and ridges rise to a uniform height so that when viewed from one of the heights the horizon is nearly flat.
In the broader interstream spaces, back a few miles from the great valleys named, the tributary valleys are fewer and less deep, and there are broad nearly flat uplands such as the ones surrounding Mount Healthy, Mason, and St. Charles (9 miles west of Hamilton).
Dimensions and Bluffs.-The Ohio where it enters the area near New Palestine flows in a trench or trough 400 feet deep and less than a mile wide between its abrupt though eroded bluffs. The trough continues with approximately these dimensions to the mouth of the Little Miami where the flood plain of the former stream merges with that of the latter in the extensive "Turkey -Bottoms" so frequently mentioned in the history of the first settlement of Cincinnati.
Westward from Turkey Bottoms and opposite Dayton, Ky., the bluffs approach each other within three-fourths of a mile or a little more. Beyond that the trough widens into a great rectangular flat which contains the cities of Covington and Newport, Ky., and the business section of Cincinnati. This remarkable expansion is about 4 miles long from northwest to southeast and more than two miles wide. The Ohio crosses it from its eastern to its western comer. Licking River enters at the southern comer and Mill Creek at the northern. This pan-shaped depression may be called the Cincinnati basin
(Fig. 4).
Westward from the Cincinnati basin, the trench again narrows, this time to one-half mile at a point just east of Andersons Ferry
(Plate. IA, also
Fig. 59). The depth of the valley, which elsewhere differs little from 400 feet, is here fully 450 feet. This locality is also remarkable for the flat undissected character of the uplands immediately behind the bluffs. The south bluff for a distance of three miles east of Andersons Ferry is almost free from gullies. Both north and south of the river the divide separating the waters which flow directly to the Ohio from those flowing in the opposite direction is very close to the top of the bluff. Another remarkable feature of this portion of the river is that its tributaries flow in an easterly direction while the main stream flows westerly (see
Fig. 49). Thus they join the main stream at an abnormal angle. Dry Creek, Ky., coming in at Constance and all those farther west join the main stream at normal angles.
Westward from Andersons Ferry the trench widens. The distance between bluffs at Sayler Park and at North Bend is fully one and one-fourth miles. Beyond the limits of the map to the west, between North Bend and Lawrenceburg, Ind., is another narrows similar to the one at Andersons Ferry.
Gradient of the Ohio.-Tlie fall of the stream in crossing this area is very small and most of that which exists is concentrated at a few bars or "riffles" where the water is shallow and the gradient larger. Between these are "reaches" or pools where the profile of the river's surface is almost flat. The Ohio enters this area at New Palestine at a low water level of 442.5 feet and leaves it at North Bend at a low water level a little below 429 feet. For 10 miles above North Bend and several miles below, the profile of the stream is almost flat. The same is true from Dayton, Ky., to Cullom's Riffle between Sedamsville and Andersons Ferry. This "riffle" or ripple is a shallow stretch of less than a mile in which the water falls almost three feet. Similar stretches with relatively steep gradient, generally called bars, are shown on
Figure 5. The profile shown in this figure is taken from the Report of an Examination of Ohio River, House Document No. 492, 60th Congress, first session. In examining such profiles it should be remembered that the slopes are enormously exaggerated, since even the steepest slopes would not be discernible on a diagram if drawn without exaggeration.
The Valley Floor.-Through most of its length and breadth the floor of this trough is the flood plain, most of whose surface is between 460 and 500 feet above the sea. Fragments of a former floor at 540 feet, more or less, form important terraces. Most of the Cincinnati basin has its floor at this level and the same level extends up the river to Dayton, Ky., and down to Ludlow, also up the Licking. Small fragments of this former level are found at California and where Four-mile Creek, Ky., emerges from the bluffs. Larger fragments are found at Sayler Park and on the Kentucky side opposite Delhi and North Bend. Everywhere this terrace consists of sand and gravel. This is being dug for commercial purposes at various places, notably at Sedamsville, Ludlow, Ky., and Bellevue, Ky., and in a small way at California.
Another kind of terrace is exemplified at California, making the level on which the largest reservoirs of the Cincinnati waterworks are constructed, a little less than 600 feet above the sea. The terrace at that place is about one-half mile wide and it extends with diminishing clearness for two miles north and two miles east to Fivemile Creek. The material of this terrace is in part sand and gravel, but in part also unassorted clay and stones, the bowlder clay described on page 107. Some large bowlders were removed in constructing the reservoirs.
The immediate valley of the Licking is very similar to that of the Ohio and nowhere in this area is it narrower than that of the Ohio at Andersons Ferry. South of the mouth of Banklick Creek its width is one-half mile or more and its depth not quite 400 feet below the uplands. North of Banklick Creek is a large triangular expansion (maximum dimension, two miles), similar to the Cincinnati basin and connected with the latter by a passage one mile wide. In this basin lies Latonia or Milldale, now a part of Covington.
The floor of the Milldale basin is an extension of the terrace which forms the bottom of the Cincinnati basin. There are also large strips and patches of the same level bordering the Licking, though outside the Milldale basin the larger part of the valley floor is at the lower level of the present flood plain. The materials of the terrace on the Licking is in very small part sand and gravel. It is mainly silt.
Dimensions and Bluffs.-The immediate valley of the Little Miami is much broader than that of the Ohio (see
Fig. 59). Near its mouth, it has also the same depth, though the depth diminishes up stream, the level of the uplands remaining about constant and that of the river rising 130 feet between its mouth and Loveland, a distance of only 16 miles in a direct line, but probably about 25 miles by the river. The fall in this portion of the stream is therefore about five feet to the mile.
Between the mouth of the Little Miami and Milford the width of the valley floor ranges from one and one-fourth to one and three-fourths miles, and is therefore much greater than that of the Ohio. While the bluffs are everywhere bold, they are much more dissected by valleys than those of the Ohio and correspondingly lacking in steepness. The uplands at full height rarely approach so close to the valley as is comonly the case along the Ohio. The significance of these features is explained in the history of the drainage.
South of Milford is the junction of the East Fork of the Little Miami with the main stream. The broad valley and flood plain below the junction find their upstream continuation along the East Fork and not along the main stream coming from the north.
Ascending the main stream to the north from Milford, the valley soon becomes narrow, less than one-half mile, but it widens and narrows somewhat irregularly, being almost a mile wide just north of Camp Dennison, a little more than half a mile at Loveland, and narrowing to a sharp gorge just south of Foster. North of that it widens a little, but not much until it approaches South Lebanon beyond the limits of this area. In this stretch north of Milford the upland (not quite so high as farther south along the Ohio) approaches at many places very close to the stream. The bluffs are more even and less gullied than those south of Milford, indicating that they are decidedly younger.
The Valley Floor.-South of Terrace Park and in the valley of East Fork most of the valley floor is flood plain, liable to overflow. Its level on the Turkey Bottoms is 460 to 500 feet; near Milford it is 500 to 540 feet; at Loveland its upper limit is near 600 feet. Other large areas in the floor of this valley consist of terrace; remnants of a former floor, continuous with that mentioned in the Ohio trough at or above the 540 foot level. The level of these fragments rises towards the north. At Redbank and south of Newtown it is about 530 feet. The fine broad terraces at Terrace Park, Milford, Camp Dennison and Miamiville are above 560 feet. Near Symmes and Branch Hill the level is at least 580 feet, and at Loveland above 600 feet. All these terraces are of gravel, very coarse and heavy in the narrower part of the valley above Milford. A small patch of similar terrace on the north side of the East Fork consists of silt like those along Licking River, Kentucky.
Higher terraces of bowlder clay, or bowlder clay interbedded with sand and gravel, cling to the bluffs of the Little Miami at various places. From Redbank almost to Terrace Park the Pennsylvania Railroad follows the foot of such a terrace. The high isolated hill in Milford is a remnant of the same general level, likewise the two isolated hills standing in the valley a mile north of Milford. From these-high points, remnants at the same level may be sighted, corresponding tothe area shown on the accompanying map as terraces of the Illinoian Glacial epoch.
Dimensions.-The immediate valley of Miami River from Middletown, Ohio, just north of this area, to Lawrenceburg, Ind., just west of it, is a clearly marked trench like that of the Ohio. It has even greater extremes of width (see
Fig. 4, also
Fig. 6). From Valley Junction (west of Cleves), where it receives the Whitewater, the Miami flows to the Ohio in a valley from two to three miles wide. North of Cleves it diminishes in width to a point about one and one-half miles south of Miamitown. Here its width is only one-fourth of a mile from bluff to bluff. Thence northward it broadens to three-fourths of a mile, but contracts again at New Baltimore to less than half a mile. Two miles farther north it widens greatly and maintains a width varying from one and one-half to two and one-half miles to Coke Otto north of Hamilton. Here it broadens to four miles in the so-called Hickory Flats. It diminishes to one and one-half miles between Trenton and Excello and then broadens again into the extensive flat south of Middletown.
The depth of the trough grows less with distance from the Ohio. The general level of the upland within one or two miles of the bluffs remains between 800 and 900 feet above the sea, while the stream has a fall of four feet to the mile. The river at Hamilton is therefore 130 feet higher than at its mouth, and at Middletown some fifty feet higher still. Generally speaking, the bluffs near the northern edge of the arba rise 100 to 200 feet above the river- at Hamilton 200 to 300 feet. Near the mouth a height of 400 feet is approached.
Character of Bluffs.-Tlie bluffs of the Miami, while everywhere distinct, are generally less steep and more furrowed by small valleys than those of the Ohio. The extreme heights mentioned are generally several miles back from the flood plain. Exceptions to this rule are found in the narrower parts of the trench. The south bluff, southwest of Miamitown, is almost as high, and for three miles, almost as unfurrowed as the south bluff of the Ohio between Constance and Bromley, Ky. But even at this place below Miarnitown, the opposite bluff is much eroded and rises but gradually to the full height of the upland.
Other exceptions to the general character of the bluffs described, are due to relatively recent and powerful erosion at the base (perhaps during the last glacial stage). Such an example is the beautiful escarpment stretching westward three or four miles from Symmes Corners, four miles south of Hamilton. All these features, width and depth of trough and form of bluffs, are important elements in deciphering the history which has given the valley its present form.
Valley Floor.-South of Hamilton the floor of this great trench consists almost entirely of flood plain, most of it still subject to overflow. A part of the floor north of Hamilton is of the same character. Here however is a widespread and important terrace built of sand and gravel and covered with fertile loam. Its surface is 620 to 640 feet high in the southern part and rises to 660 feet at the northern edge of the area and still higher near the bluffs where it merges with the floors of tributary valleys. This terrace constitutes the main portion of "Hickory Flats," one of the most famous farming districts in Ohio.
Hardly distinguishable from the level of this terrace are several areas of more undulating surface. body of these is clay laid down by the continental glacier. (See
graphic map in pocket.)
Several fragments of the sand and gravel terrace remain in the lower end of the valley; a very considerable one 540 feet high at Valley Junction from which the railroads obtain much gravel; and a similar one 560 feet high, similarly used, at Valley View north of Miamitown.
A large valley, similar in almost every respect to that of the Miami, extends eastward from St. Bernard and Bond Hill. It contains the city of Norwood and the suburban villages of Oakley and Madisonville, and opens into the trench of the Little Miami. Its width is from one and one-half to two and one-half miles (see
Fig. 4). Its bluffs are like those of the Miami and Little Miami, distinct, but furrowed with minor valleys especially on the south side where the bluff is less abrupt than on the north. An exceptional stretch of bluff east of Madisonville is very steep and straight and almost free from gullies and ravines for more than a mile.
The uplands south of this trough (that is, the hill portion of Cincinnati) rise 700 to 800 feet above the sea; those on the north side 800 to 900 feet. The broad floor of the valley has an altitude of 600 feet, more or less. The valley is therefore perfectly distinct, having a depth of 100 to 300 feet with an almost flat floor bounded by hills on both sides.
The flat floor here mentioned is locally cut into by Duck Creek and at many places pierced by deep wells. Moreover, at its east end it terminates in a steep face 100 feet high overlooking the Little Miami, thus exposing the materials of the substructure. From such exposures it is known that the flat floor of the valley is composed of beds of ,and gravel, and clay, alternating with sheets of hard bowlder clay.
It will be seen that this valley is much wider than that of the Ohio at any place except in the Cincinnati basin, yet its largest stream a present is Duck Creek which flows east and south from Norwood to the Little Miami. For so large a valley this stream is insignificant in size, no larger than some of those which descend the bluffs in ravines. A still smaller stream flows westward from Norwood to Mill Creek. Between the heads of the east-flowing and the west-flowing streams this great valley has no stream at present.
A striking feature of this area is the great valley which is occupied, except at its northern end, by Mill Creek, a small stream which issues from the bluffs in a narrow valley, little more than a ravine, and bears the same relation to the great valley which it follows as Duck Creek does to the Norwood Trough.
Mill Creek Valley opens at the south end into the Cincinnati basin. Between that basin and Cumminsville (a distance of two miles) the valley is little more than one-half mile wide and bordered by abrupt bluffs. In this portion it strongly resembles the trench of the Ohio. At Cumminsville the valley turns east and merges with the Norwood Trough, the two together forming a continuous lowland on the north side of the island-like upland which is the chief residence portion of Cincinnati. These combined valleys form a lowland strip three to four miles wide trending north from St. Bernard and Bond Hill. At Lockland the valley divides, the western arm, occupied by West Fork of Mill Creek, coming to a head south of Glendale. The eastern arm continues northward to the point where Mill Creek issues from the east bluff, then curves to the west, merging into the trench of the Miami. Its width is one and one-fourth to two and one-half miles. Everywhere north of Cumminsville, the bluffs of Mill Creek Valley are similar to those along the Miami, being much indented and dissected by side streams and presenting to the valley the appearance of a range of rolling hills rather than that of a continuous escarpment.
Like the Miami trench, this valley decreases in depth toward the north. Its decrease is greater, however, because the northward rise of its floor is greater. Along a line drawn south from Lindenwald, the difference in elevation between the Mill Creek Valley on the east and that of the Miami on the west is about 30 feet, although this descent is not made abruptly or in a single step. The floor of Mill Creek Valley from this point east and south is nearly flat for a long distance. Much of it was swampy until artificially drained by the "state ditch." It consists of sand, gravel, mud, and bowlder clay, now one, now another. For three miles west from Flockton it contains no stream.
It will be recalled that at a point near Venice, O., the Miami leaves its broad (two miles) valley and turns south into a narrow trench passing New Baltimore and Miamitown. The very wide trough which it follows to a point west of Venice does not stop there but continues westward to the Indiana boundary where it becomes the valley of the Whitewater which enters it from Indiana at Harrison (see
Fig. 4). This portion of the great valley between Venice and Harrison is so nearly like the great river valleys which it connects that the casual observer might fail to notice that it is not now occupied by the Miami ]River. Instead of being followed -as a drainage line it is actually crossed by Paddy's Run, a small stream which emerges from the bluff on the north and flows entirely across this broad valley to join the Miami in its narrow trench farther south. The bluffs of this part of the valley are similar to those of the Miami wherever the valley of the latter is broad. The floor is in large part mildly undulating glacial drift, but crossed by bands of sand and gravel covered by rich loam laid down by streams in the transverse valleys. The entire expanse is not unlike the Hickory Flats north of Hamilton. The name New Haven Trough is taken from the village of New Haven which is centrally located and surrounded by a topography which is typical of the valley.
The depth of the New Haven valley is thirty to fifty feet less than that of adjacent portions of the Miami trench for the reason that its floor is that much higher.
From Middletown, O., southeastward to South Lebanon just east of this area, extends a prominent flat-bottomed trough very similar to the Norwood and New Haven troughs and Mill Creek Valley (see
Fig. 4). It is followed almost in a straight line by the Middletown branch of the Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railroad. It is drained by two streams flowing in opposite directions from its center near Union Village; Dicks Creek flowing northwest to the Miami and Little Muddy Creek flowing southeast to the Little Miami. The fall of both streams is about five feet to the mile, but this is considerably more than the slope of the valley floor, for the streams in their lower courses have cut beneath that level. The valley is about two miles wide at the northwest, but southeast of Union Village it narrows to less than a mile. Near the eastern border of the area it is subdivided into two much narrower valleys, the one occupied by Little Muddy Creek, the other followed by the railroad. Beyond the eastern limit of the map, the valley again widens to about a mile.
The bluffs of this valley are from 100 to 200 feet high. In slope and appearance they are much like those of the northern end of Mill Creek Valley, always distinct, but never abrupt. They are carved into rounded hills, rising gradually from the valley floor.
The floor of this trough is mildly rolling near its ends, but elsewhere almost perfectly flat. A considerable area between the headwaters of its two streams is swampy. The material of this floor beneath the rich surface loam is like that of Mill Creek Valley, consisting of clay, sand, and gravel.
A striking feature of this valley is found in the abrupt hummocky gravel hills which partly fill it near Camp Hageman and subdivide it into two smaller valleys. (See Kames at Chapter 5 &
Chapter 6b).
The valleys described above are of distinctly larger dimensions than any of those which remain, and also of greater importance in the history of the present surface. But a few of the remaining valleys have much in common with these larger valleys in their relatively broad flat bottoms and pronounced bluffs. The most important of these are the valleys of four creeks which flow southeast into the Miami. Named in order from north to South, these are Sevenmile, Fourmile, and Indian Creeks and Paddy's Run. The floors of the first three consist mainly of alluvium, though not all liable to overflow at the present time. Since small streams require more fall than large ones, these floors rise rapidly up stream and the height of their bluffs grows correspondingly less. Fourmile Creek at Oxford, just north of the northwest corner of the area, has bluffs but little more than 100 feet high. The same is true of Indian Creek where it enters the area ten miles west of Hamilton.
The valley of Paddy's Run possesses interest of another kind. It has a complex history to be discussed later. The abnormally wide lowland along this small stream is underlain by glacial deposits and only in small part by alluvium. Westward from Shandon, this valley is continuous with that of Dry Fork of the Whitewater, but it is not followed by a stream.
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