The portal of the chasm, through which the ancient river of 

 the Cassadaga may have discharged its waters northward, where 

 now rests the Cassadaga lake, and at the point where the- highland 

 range reaches its greatest altitude, was left choked with drift to the 

 extraordinary depth of five hundred feet, extending southward along 

 the channel of the stream, decreasing in depth and quantity until it 

 reached the Allegheny river at Warren. The chasms of Bear Lake, 

 of the Conewango and Cattaraugus, and the upper Allegheny, were 

 also deeply buried beneath the debris. 



The deposition of the heaviest masses of drift in the northern 

 portion of these channels had the effect to raise their levels, so that 

 the surfaces of the valleys was slightly tilted southward and their 

 water currents reversed. The moraines left by the retiring glaciers 

 had the effect to dam their waters, and to cause an extensive and 

 irregular lake to extend like the fingers of a man's hand up the val- 

 leys of the Conewango, the Cassadaga and Bear Creeks, the evi- 

 dence of which remains in the fine assorted material, peculiar fresh 

 water deposits, stratified drift, and beds of marl — a product of fresh 

 water life. The semi-tropical era that followed the glacial period, 

 known as the Champlain, fitted this region for the existence of the 

 mastodon and the North American elephant which frequented the 

 marshes that bordered these waters. Their teeth and other bones 

 have been found in the Cassadaga valley. The skeleton of a large 

 mastodon, with tusks ten feet in length, the twigs of the ancient 1 

 conifers upon which he fed, preserved with his remains, were found 

 near Jamestown, and are now preserved in the museum of its city 

 school. But this ancient lake sought an outlet southward to the 

 Allegheny. The drift moraines that dammed its waters during the 

 Champlain and recent periods, have been slowly wearing away. As 

 the channel of its outlet has been cut deeper, its waters have lowered, 

 and there now only remains clusters of little lakes in the upper parts 

 of these valleys where the drift is piled the deepest. Yet the process 

 of draining is still going on. The Cassadaga, Bear, and Mud Lakes 

 of the Conewango and Cassadaga valleys, diminutive descendants 

 of the great lake that once spread so widely over the Chautauqua 

 basin, must yield with the lapse of time, drained through their slowly 

 lowering outlets, and filled with silt from the neighboring hillsides. 

 Yet the waters of these extensive valleys are even now detained 

 from resuming their old channels and flowing northward into Lake 

 Erie by the slightest of barriers. Many years ago a few strong men 

 in a few hours cut a channel from the head of the Cassadaga Lake 

 a few rods, but sufficient to permit the waters to flow into a tribu- 

 tary of the Canadaway, — a stream that discharges itself into Lake 

 Erie. They w-ere restrained by an injunction issued by Judge R. P. 

 Marvin, of Jamestown. Had not this measure been promptly taken 



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