2/6 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. [Feb. I4, 



From this valley the waters escaped to the Onondaga valley by 

 another splendid canyon east of Marcellus. with an enormous delta at 

 South Onodaga village. From the Onondaga valley three fine can- 

 yons lead east to the Butternut valley near Jamesville. The lowest 

 and finest of these is the great rock cut utilized by the Delaware, 

 Lackawanna and \\^estern Railroad in passing from Syracuse over to 

 Jamesville. East from Jamesville are three cuts leading east to the 

 limestone valley at High Bridge, and three more lead on northeast to 

 lower ground at the level of lake Iroquois. 



At least three of the canyons are headed by cataracts similar to 

 Niagara. One fine cataract is at the head of the middle one of the 

 three gorges at Jamesville, with Jamesville Lake filling the basin in the 

 amphitheatre. Another cataract is northeast of Jamesville one and 

 one-half miles, with Blue Lake in the plunge basin, and a fine one is 

 located two miles southwest of Mycenae. In the latter the pool at the 

 foot of the cataract has been filled. 



Other and subsequent channels are found northward ; one at 

 Camillus and one passing through the centre of Syracuse. The alti- 

 tudes of these channels show a descending flow eastward in each series. 

 The upper ones have an elevation much above Chicago, because all 

 the land of the Laurentian era has suffered, since the ice removal, an 

 unequal uplift that has given the old water planes a northward rise, 

 amounting in the Syracuse region to about 300 feet as compared with 

 Chicago. The present altitude of the ancient glacial lake surface at 

 Chicago is about 600 feet above ocean, while the corresponding plane 

 at Syracuse is nearly 900 feet. 



These canyons and fossil cataracts in the Syracuse region were 

 functionally the predecessors of Niagara, as they drained the waters 

 of the Erian level down toward the Ontarian level. They were not 

 the outlets of Lake Warren, for that lake had its outlet across Michi- 

 gan to Lake Chicago and so ultimately to the Mississippi. The 

 Syracuse gorges were cut by falling waters inferior to Warren. We 

 might call the waters hypo-Warren ; but as they were flowing east- 

 ward and tending toward Iroquois level a better name is hyper- 

 Iroquois. The long-permanent Iroquois lake had its outlet at Rome, 

 K. Y. , to the Mohawk valley. One long pause in the falling hyper- 

 Iroquois waters, the great gorge leading east from Marcellus prob- 

 ably being its outlet, has left excellent beaches on the west side of 

 the Seneca valley and other evidences of lake erosion westward, at an 

 elevation of about 700 feet. This water is named Lake Dana. 



