PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE ADIRONDACKS. 197 



the Ordovician to the Glacial epoch must be interpreted, if at all, by the 

 structural and physiographic records. The Labradorean ice sheet was, 

 however, of enormous importance. Its deposits are heavy, and it 

 doubtless operated to form numberless lakes and to greatly reorganize 

 the drainage, as will be later pointed out in a few suggestive instances. 

 The Mountains Proper and the Western Plateau. — The Adirondack 

 region, sometimes referred to as the Great North Woods, is mountainous 

 in its eastern half, and has its highest peaks near its center, but on the 

 west the mountains disappear and the area becomes a plateau ranging 

 from 2,000 feet above tide gradually downward to the west until it is 

 but slightly higher than Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence. The 



Fig. 3. Mt. Whiteface from French's Hotel on the North. Steep and narrow 



p isses bound it on either side. 



loftiest peak is Marcy, 5,344 feet, and there are one or two others which 

 exceed 5,000, together with five or six additional above 4,500, and many 

 above 3.000. The mountains are ranged in visible northeast and south- 

 west lines, and are often very steep if not positively precipitous in the 

 portions that look to the southeast or northwest. There are also other 

 st< ep faces nearly at right angles with the above, but they are less pro- 

 nounced. When viewed from a distance the profile is strongly serrate 

 — a gradual slope up on one side being cut off abruptly by an almost 

 vertical descent on the other. 



The individual mountains are diversified in shape. Mt. Marcy is a 

 very low cone, and the last stages of its ascent are very much like climb- 

 ing a dome. Mt. Mclntyre has a gradual slope from the northwest. 



