PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE ADIRONDACKS. 



20I 



E. A. Howell, show this in all desirable clearness. Along the shores 

 of Lake Champlain the ridges come in one after another from the 

 southwest, making the western shore of the lake a series of bays with 

 bold intervening headlands. The central portion of Lake George, 

 where the wildest and most picturesque scenery is found, is another 

 example. Precipitous escarpments characterize the shores, while moun- 

 tains of ruo-aed outline shut in the observer. In the interior these 

 characters appear on an even grander scale. The Lower Ausable lake 

 is a Graben ; Avalanche lake, one of the sources of the Hudson, has 

 cliffs so steep that the traveler must take to a boat to find a passage. 

 In Wilmington notch, as also in Indian pass, cliffs hardly less than a 

 thousand feet, front the traveler. 



A second but less strongly developed series of faults runs north- 

 west and southeast and is the cause of many cross breaks at right 

 angles with the set last mentioned. They serve to block out the indi- 

 vidual mountains amid the general northeast trend of the ridges, and 

 are responsible for innumerable little cross-passes which are found 

 on all the summits. In the high mountains, the little cross-passes 

 almost always have a well-defined bear or deer trail following them 

 through. They serve also to develop sharp shoulders in the precipices 

 of the first type and to give the shores of a lake a very serrated out- 

 line. In the Mount Marcy and Elizabethtown quadrangle they, with 

 the first set, have occasioned the interesting ' lattice-shaped ' drainage 

 noted by Professor Brigham some years ago. The little streams flow 



Fi«.. 7. The Cascade Lakes, between the Keexe Vat. ley and Lake Placid— illustrating 



the northwest and southeast faulted vallev. 



