1897.] The Swamps of Oswego County, N. Y. 695 



thought it would be unsafe to venture in there in spring or 

 autumn. To the north of Granny's Orchard proper the 

 wooded belt stretches away for several miles. Catfish Creek, 

 a small stream, flows through the northern end of the swamp, 

 flowing north into Lake Ontario. The small, sluggish stream 

 draining Granny's Orchard flows south into Oneida Lake. It 

 is evident that the whole swamp was once a large lake, and 

 whether it drained into Lake Ontario or Oneida Lake remains 

 to be investigated. The gulf cut through the whole hill where 

 Catfish Creek leaves the swamp suggests that it may have been 

 cut through after the lake had partially filled. I have not yet 

 had an opportunity to study the outlet to the south. 



ORIGIN OF THE MOOR FLORA. 



If we may judge from the actual conditions existing now in 

 Arctic regions, immediately succeeding the glacial epoch this 

 whole region was clothed with a vegetation resembling that 

 now existing in our moors, indeed, resembling it much more 

 than does any other feature of our present flora with the pos- 

 sible exception of the Alpine plants still persisting on our 

 mountain tops. It is indeed an extraordinary circumstance 

 that our lowest (in altitude) regions and our highest regions 

 should have preserved to us a flora which is, for the most part, 

 extinct. Since the Alpine plants and many of the bog plants 

 draw nearer and nearer together so far as situation goes, as we 

 go northward, until finally we find them mingled, our state- 

 ment of the case is a correct one, and confirms the idea that 

 our moor floras are remnants of an Arctic vegetation once pre- 

 dominating here. 



THE RAPID ACCUMULATION OF MATERIAL IN THE DEPRESSIONS. 



Although such a condition may not have actually existed, 

 we may assume, for the purpose of illustration, that one of the 

 depressions caused by the ice in this movement was left naked 

 by the sudden lowering of the water level in the region. A 

 lake would be left in the depression. The moisture held in 

 the soil of the surrounding hills would steadily gravitate to- 

 ward the lake and form springs. The water from these would 

 often more than off"set the loss of water from the surface of the 



