ESSEX COUNTY. 213 



Passing over the mountains of Chesterfield, we reach the valley of the Ausable. Descend- 

 ing into it, we meet with numerous boulders of sand and gravel, which may be termed drift, 

 many hundred feet above the sandy plains about Keeseville. la fact, upon the height of the 

 pass, or beneath the high perpendicular walls so conspicuous on this road, thick gravel beds 

 are not uncommon, which, from their appearance, are composed of materials transported 

 from the north. 



Though the valleys form no considerable feature in the physical geography of this county, 

 yet channels for drainage are extremely numerous. Some of the most important have already 

 been noticed. So numerous indeed are those channels, that they diverge in all directions 

 from the central mass of mountains which form the Adirondack group, and convey the 

 waters to the most distant and opposite points of our country. Thus, in the neighborhood of 

 the sources of the Hudson, the Preston ponds, within a mile or two of some of the ramifying 

 branches of the Adirondack river, receive and convey the waters to the Racket river, and by 

 this channel to the St. Lawrence. The branches of the Ausable and Bouquet interlock with 

 both branches of the Hudson, and their waters flow towards opposite points of the compass. 

 But to finish in a few words all that is necessary upon this subject, I remark that Essex 

 county forms a large part of the water-shed of the whole country north of the Mohawk valley. 

 The general features of tliis section of country have been sufficiently described in my general 

 account of the topography of this district, especially when taken in connection with the facts 

 furnished by the journeys of Mr. Benedict, all of which have been given in the preceding 

 pages. 



Lakes. 



There are about one hundred lakes in Essex county, most of which are small. They diver- 

 sify the face of the country, and impart a greater variety to its scenery, but contribute con- 

 siderably to diminish its temperature. They are not equally distributed over the country, but 

 are collected in clusters upon the summit levels in different portions of the county. Thus, in 

 the immediate neighborhood of Bluebeard or Mount Pharaoh in Scluroon, they are exceedingly 

 numerous; again, in the western townships, around the the Adirondack group, they are nume- 

 rous, and some quite large and deep ; and lastly, in the vicinity of Whiteface, we find a 

 similar arrangement. 



Most of the lakes of this county are long and narrow ; and instead of occupying shallow 

 basins scooped out of the softer materials, as earth or the ordinary slates and shales, they lie 

 in chasms formed by uplifts and fractures in the primary rocks. That they may have been 

 deepened by the same agents which have borne along the drift and loose materials upon the 

 surface, is possible ; for at the height of two thousand feet above tide, the rocks are scored 

 and scratched as in the lower districts. But I am rather disposed to believe that the eiTect 

 has been, generallj^ to fill up rather than excavate deeply into the hard rocks of this region ; 

 and if so, the tendency of those powers which have moved these materials has been to distri- 

 bute them more equally, and to fill the deeper depressions. Hence, they now bear more the 



