LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/physicalfeatures11gold ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. BULLETIN No. 11 Physical Features of the Des Plaines Valley BY James Walter Goldthwait Urbana University of Illinois 1909 SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Illinois State Journal Co., State Printers 1909 STATE GEOLOGICAL COMMISSION. Governor C. S. Deneen, Chairman. Professor T. C. Chamberlin, Vice-Chairman. President Edmund J. James, Secretary. H. Foster Bain, Director. P. D. Salisbury, Consulting Geologist, in charge of the preparation of Educational Bulletins. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. List of illustrations vii Letter of transmittal . ix Chapter I. Geography and history of the Des Plaines river 1 Introduction 1 The Des Plaines basin 3 History of the Chicago portage and the canals C> Chapter II. The structure of the bed rock 10 Deposition of Paleozoic sediments ]0 Nature and age of the rocks 10 The Cambrian period 11 The Ordovician period 12 The Silurian period , 14 The Devonian period 17 The close of sedimentation 19 Warping, iointing, and faulting of the rocks 19 Folds 19 Joints 20 Faults 21 Chapter III. The concealed surface of the bed rock 23 Significance of the buried topography 23 Pre-glacial denudation 2+ Deductions from the driftless area 24 The pre-glacial topography 24 The development of underground drainage 25 Glaciation 26 The glacial period 26 The smoothing and striating of the rock surface 29 The burial of the rock surface with drift SO The buried topography 31 Chapter IV. The glacial and interglacial deposits 33 The distribution and surface form of the drift 33 Thickness of the drift 34 Complexity of the drift 35 The two kinds of drift 35 The ice-laid drift or till 36 The stratified drift 38 The Joliet conglomerate 42 Chapter V. Physiographic history of the lower Des Plaines river 46 General description 46 Deposition of the early Wisconsin drift 47 The early Wisconsin moraines 47 The lake in the Morris basin 48 Deposition of the late Wisconsin drift 48 The Minooka till ridge 48 The Valparaiso morainic system and its outwash 49 Excavation by the outlet of Lake Chicago 52 Glenwood stage. Excavation of a trench in the valley train 52 Calumet stage. The Lockport sill 54 Toleston and later stages. Abandonment of the outlet and substitution of the Des Plaines river 55 Erosion by tributaries 57 Fraction run 57 Long run and other tributaries above the sill 59 Spring creek and Hickory creek 59 Sugar creek 60 Reed's woods ravine 60 Alluvial fans and cones 64 VI Table ^of contents—Concluded. Page. Chapter VI. Physiographic history of the upper Des Plaines river 66 Deposition of the till ridges 66 Lake Chicago 67 Glen wood stage 67 The Oak Park spit 67 Shoreline between Maywood and Mt. Forest 73 Calumet stage 74 ¥ mergence of the floor of Des Plaines bay 74 he Calumet shoreline 75 Toleston stage 78 Extension of the Des Plaines river near Riverside 78 Renewed trenching of the valley 79 The Toleston shoreline 79 Subsequent changes leading to formation of Lake Michigan 81 Excavation of the valley 81 Development of tributaries 86 Chapter VII. Floods on the Des Plaines river 88 The upper river 88 The lower river 91 Appendix. Suggestions for field trips 94 VII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Plates. Page. 1. Fossils from the Niagara formation 16 2. (a) Lock on the Illinois- Michigan canal above Joliet 22 (b) Fault in the wall of the Sugar creek gorge 22 3. Pebbles from the drift 36 4. (a) Stratified drift at Overholser's pit, Joliet 40 (b) Exposure of Joliet conglomerate near Spring creek 40 5. i a) Outwash terrace on Spring creek 42 lb) Fraction run above Dellwood park 42 6. Map of the gorge of Sugar creek 60 7. Map of the ravine in Reed's woods 62 8. (a) Young gully near Reed's woods 76 (b) Calumet beach ridge at Summit 76 9. Effects of a recent flood on Hickory creek 92 Figures. 1. Map of the Des Plaines basin 2 2. Section through the rock in a deep well at Lockport 10 3. North America in Potsdam and in Trenton time 13 4. North America in Niagara and in later Devonian time , 15 5. Map of the North American ice sheet 26 6. Map of the moraines in Illinois -... 28 7. Sections of residual soil and of drift ...- 29 8. Block diagram—The ice sheet and the west ridge of the Valparaiso morainic sys- tem 40 9. Block diagram—The ice sheet and the Valparaiso moraine 41 10. Map of the lower Des Plaines river 47 11. Maps showing two stages of Lakes Chicago and Maumee 53 ,; 12. Diagram to illustrate stoping" in the Chicago outlet 55 13. Block diagram— Effect of recession of falls on tributaries 58 14. Block diagram—A crooked gully 62 15. Block diagram—A meandering g^ully 63 16. Map of part of Lake Chicago. Glenwood stage 68 17. Map of the district about Oak Park and Maywood 70 18. Map of part of Lake Chicago. Calumet stage 75 19. Map of the district between Riverside and Summit 77 20. Map of part of Lake Chicago. Toleston stage 80 21. Diagram showing the development of a straight- walled, riat- floored valley 84 1\ LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. St\tk Geological Survey, University of Illinois, Urbaxa. March 22, 1909. Governor C. S. Deneen, Chairman, and Members of the Geological Com- m ission : Gentlemen—I submit herewith a report on the Physical Features of the Des Plaines Valley with the recommendation that it be published as Bulletin 11 of the Survey. This forms the second of the "Educational Bulletins" of the Survey being prepared under the general direction of R. D. Salisbury, Consulting Geologist of the Survey. The author, Dr. J. W. (roldthwait, now of Dartmouth College, prepared this while connected with Northwestern University. Into it he has put the accumulated ex- perience of several years' teaching during which the Des Plaines Valley was explored and studied as a field for illustration of the common prin- ciples of physiography. While, therefore, the report will be of particular interest to people living in the vicinity, it will afford excellent illustrative material wherever rivers and their valleys are being studied. The large demand for the preceding bulletin of this series (Bulletin 7) indicates a very widespread and live interest in the subject of physical geography among teachers and laymen. An intelligent insight into one's environ- ment is the desire of every normal person and it is felt that these little bulletins serve a very real need even of those not concerned with teach- ing. Dr. Goldthwait's studies of the development and history of this, a typical stream of our region, with his special notes on its floods, hav< also a very direct and practical value in view of the area of land subjecl to overflow and the need for regulation of the stream. In the preparation of the text and illustrations five use lias been made of earlier publications and the author desires that acknowledgements be made especially t<> Messrs. Frank Leverett and W. C. Allen of the U. S. Geological Survey, and. Mr. Lyman E. Cooley, Civil Engineer, of Chi- cago. A copy of the well executed map of Cook county, drawn for the Sanitary District of Chicago, was furnished the author, through the courtesy of the Chief Engineer, Mr. Ishara Randolph, and has been of great value. Small portions of this map have been copied in reduced form in Figs. K and 19. Mr. J. W. Ferris of Joliet contributed useful information concerning the fossils of thai vicitnity. To Mr. J. M. Large, in in Joliet township instructor physical" geography the high school, the —2b G writer is indebted for a contour map of the ravine in Heed's woods. This map was extended and redrawn to form Plate 7 by Mr. D. F. Higgins, who also prepared a contour map of the gorge of Sugar creek (Plate 6) and aided greatly in the preparing of other illustrations. Special ac- knowledgment is due to Mr. Charles E. Decker for efficient help in the field, and to Professor E. D. Salisbury for kindly yet most thorough criticism. The Survey is under great obligations to these gentlemen, and to Dr. Goldthwait for the preparation of the report, all of which it is a pleasure to acknowledge. Very respectfully, H. Foster Bain, Director. PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE DES PLAINES VALLEY. (By James Walter Goldthwait.) CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY OF THE DES PLAINES RIVER. INTRODUCTION. The Des Plaines valley is one of peculiar interest geologically and his- torically. The lower portion of the valley, southwest of Chicago, was once occupied by a great river, the outlet of an early Lake Michigan. The divide over which the lake once spilled to the Des Plaines, now the continental divide between the Laurentian lakes and the gulf, is- only about ten feet above the present lake. So low and flat is this divide that before the construction of the Illinois-Michigan canal it was covered by the spring freshets of the upper Des Plaines, and afforded the early French explorers an easy and continuous canoe route from the lakes to the Mississippi. The Chicago pass is fully 175 feet lower than the next lowest pass in the St. Lawrence-Mississippi divide, at Ft. Wayne, Indiana. No wonder that the idea of an artificial channel near Chicago, to join the lakes with the Mississippi, was conceived by Louis Joliet, one of the first men to cross the divide.