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Showing posts from September, 2023

Clyde A. Malott (1887-1950) and Indiana’s Lost River Basin

By Ronda L. Sewald It was February of 2021. I'd just returned to Indiana University's Bloomington campus for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Sitting on my desk in the middle of the dimly lit and empty cubicle farm was a small folder. Trying to ignore the gloomy and cave-like atmosphere, I opened the folder and turned my attention to a curious set of sixteen hand-drawn map sheets, all sketched between 1926 and 1931 by someone who went by "Malott" or "C.A.M." It was an odd assortment of topographic and cave maps that paid meticulous attention to rises, sinks, swallow-holes, and a mysterious inland gulf. The maps were clearly related to Indiana karst topography, but what tied them all together and who was "Malott?"   A search on "Malott" in the BTAA Geoportal resulted in one other map, specifically   Drainage Map of the Upper and Middle Parts of Lost River Basin: Orange, Washington, and Lawrence Counti...