the waters would have been turned through this channel — the sand 

 and gravel and loose material that deeply underlies all the northern 

 borders, and indeed the whole lake would have so quickly yielded to 

 the rapid flow down its steep descent northerly as to excavate a deep 

 channel which would have soon drained it. In time, the flow of 

 the waters of the Cassadaga, and of the Outlet, and also of the 

 Conewango, would have been eventually turned northward into this 

 channel, and the floor bed of this ancient river laid bare, practically 

 demonstrating the truth of the theory that such was the original 

 direction of the waters. 



The old gorge cut in the rocks underneath Chautauqua Lake, 

 which may once have been the channel of an important tributary of 

 this ancient river, was also, during the ice period, buried beneath 

 immense masses of this drift. Along the shores of the lake we now 

 see displayed to great advantage the work of the glaciers that closed 

 its channel. Chautauqua, Long, and Bemus Points are all moraines 

 left by the retiring glaciers. Extending from the foot of the lake 

 as far as Falconer, are ranges of drift hills and immense isolated 

 heaps of gravel and stones piled up by the glaciers, as at Tiffanyville. 

 Seldom do we find such masses of drift as compose the hills upon 

 which the City of Jamestown is built. The glacier moved southerly, 

 probably obliquely along the eastern shore of the lake, shoving along 

 beneath it masses of debris which it had loosened and detached from 

 the firm, stratified rocks in regions northward, gathered mainly from 

 the hills of Ellery. It first filled the old channel w T hich extended 

 easterly, north of the cemetery near Jamestown and nearly along 

 the course of Moon's Brook towards Falconer. The glacier then 

 moved slowly southward at right angles with the longest axis of 

 the lake, bearing with it a huge mass of debris which composes the 

 hills that form the site of Jamestown. It so dammed the waters 

 of the channel as to form the lake. It gradually crowded the outlet 

 southward until, at the close of the ice period, its course extended 

 where we now find it, bending around the main part of the town. 

 The duration of the ice period was so great, and the process so slow 

 of accumulating these deposits of drift, that had man then existed 

 the movement of the glacier would have been unobserved by him. 



As it has been said, the same causes and the same movement of 

 the glaciers that made the drift hills at Jamestown, produced Chau- 

 tauqua, Bemus and Long Points. These capes extend across the 

 old channel in the same direction, and now, when the waters of the 

 lake are lowered, crowd its course southward in the same manner. 

 They now tend to divide the lake in separate compartments, or 

 smaller lakes connected by channels or straits. The deepest part 

 of each lake is usually just above or just below these divisions. Above 

 Chautauqua and Chautauqua Point, according to accurate soundings 



46 



