GEOLOGY OF THE VICINITY OF LITTLE FALLS 65 



the excess being in the lower portion of the section. Data as to 

 the slope of the floor on which these rocks were laid down are 

 lacking, though the evidence is clear that it was by no means so 

 even as it is about Little Falls. On the other hand, the surface 

 was by no means so rugged as much of the present Adirondack 

 surface. Yet, with the surface as at present, the thickness of 

 Paleozoic rocks laid down on the north would suffice to blanket 

 the whole region with them, if extended to the south over it. 

 Because of this, the writer has argued in a previous publication 

 that the entire Adirondack region was likely submerged at the 

 close of Utica deposition. Following an entirely different line 

 of argument, Ruedemann has contended for nearly complete sub- 

 mergence during the Utica. 1 The evidence on the south seems 

 however somewhat opposed to these conclusions, and at least war- 

 rants the statement that any portion of the region which may 

 have remained unsubmerged during or at the close of Utica 

 deposition, was in the southern Adirondacks. 



The fact that the deposits of the early Paleozoic are thickest on 

 the northeast, diminishing thence west and south, implies more 

 rapid and more steady subsidence in that part of the region. 

 And the vastly greater quantity of land wash carried into the 

 northern sea indicates that the prevailing drainage of the present 

 Adirondack area was to the north. Along this line may come a 

 propable explanation of the apparently conflicting evidence from 

 the north and the south in regard to the submergence of the dis- 

 trict at the close of the Utica. 



It seems to argue that the summit of the Adirondack island 

 was toward the southern part of the present region, and if it was 

 not distant more than 30 or 40 miles from the present border it 

 would have become submerged by the close of the Trenton at 

 the estimated rate of overlap. 



TOPOGRAPHY 



The present topography of the Little Falls district is the result 

 of, and expression of, its long and complicated geologic history. 

 The pre-Cambrian submergence with its deposits, the pre-Cam- 



^uedemann, R. Am. Geol. June 1897 and Feb. 1898. p.75. 



