RIGHT HERE IN INDIANA. Lost River Disappears, Then Re-emerges An Artesian Spring (National Road Traveler, Cambridge City, Indiana, July 13, 1967) 

Most Hoosier streams meander. The flow of a number of them is intermittent and seasonal. But only in the distinctive karst country of southwestern Indiana is there a sizeable stream which disappears into the earth entirely and then, some miles away, returns to the surface like a gushing spring. This phenomenon is called Lost River. It is one of the outstanding features in a scenic and historic region long famous for its mineral springs, caves, sinkholes and other limestone oddities. The region is the only part of Indiana never covered by Ice Age glaciers. It abounds in caves and extends into Kentucky. In Indiana it runs down through Putnam, Owen, Greene, Monroe, Lawrence, Martin, Orange, Washington, Harrison and Floyd Counties. Geologists call it the Mitchell Plain. Crawford Upland is to the west of the Mitchell Plain and the Norman Upland is to the east. These two uplands have the most topography with the greatest terrain contract in Hoosierland. Frequently in the Mitchell Plain the solvent action of water on limestone has produced sinkholes, caves and underground water routes. Some sinkholes are 50 feet deep and six acres in area. This karst situation also makes for fewer and smaller surface streams as well as for natural bridges, poorly drained land, and a repetitious undulation or roll of the land.

Southern Indiana contains more than 400 known caves and hundreds of springs. The most famous of the caverns - the Wyandotte Caves - were purchased recently by the Indiana Dept of Natural Resources. The smaller cave is now open for guided tours and the larger cave will be opened as soon as certain safety measures are completed. The Wyandotte Caves are now a part of the state-operated recreation area being developed at the Harrison-Crawford State Forest. Eventually it will include 25,000 acres and both banks of Blue River for many miles. The famous Indiana limestone was formed from lime ooze and beds of shell fragments at the bottom of shallow seas that existed 300 million years ago. The region became land about 200 million years ago.

Lost River rises near Smedley's Station in Washington County at an altitude of 900 feet above sea level. In its first dozen miles there is little evidence of sinkholes as it advances through a broad shallow valley. However, just east of the Washington-Orange County line, the channel deepens to 75 feet. Sinkholes and springs begin to appear. By the time Lost River is five miles into Orange County its bed has dropped 200 feet. Its water begins to disappear in sinkholes. The major sink is about 23 miles southeast of Orleans, in northern Orange County. When white settlers came to the region they found several Shawnee Indian villages there, as well as elseqhere in the county. During dry weather Lost River disappears entirely. Then, about one mile south of Orangeville, it bubbles up again as an artesian spring. The altitude of this "spring" is 400 feet and the linear distance is about eight miles from where the river submerged. Although the wandering and usually-dry bed is 21 miles long, the subsurface route of the river seems to be in a virtually straight line. The sub-surface course is a complex system of mains and leads and not a single stream, however. A smaller stream - Stampers Creek - is similar in its hide-and-seek tactics but it does not have a completely-dry bed.