PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTING 9 



rock masses. The influence of the St. Lawrence Val- 

 ley region is felt across the entire north line of the 

 State where it joins with the Champiaiu Valley by a 

 broad low ridge around the northern side of the 

 mountains. 



On the southern side of the Mohawk Eiver the 

 lowland area west of Little Falls continues with a 

 slight southerly trend. The boundary past Utica 

 is still quite abrupt but from there west it fades into 

 a more gentle slope of decreasing elevation. West of 

 Syracuse there is a uniform slope from the southern 

 highlands to the shore of Lake Ontario. A little 

 to the north of a line from Utica to Syracuse is a 

 broad, flat plain in the midst of which lies Oneida 

 Lake, a shallow sag in the land surface. 



For a hundred miles west of Syracuse, which is 

 two-thirds of the distance to Bufl'alo, the country 

 forms a long, gentle, but undulating to hilly slope 

 from the southern plateau region of the State north- 

 ward to Lake Ontario. The six hundred foot contour 

 is situated about thirty miles back from the lake 

 and is followed a few miles further south by the one 

 thousand foot contour. The surfaces of a large part 

 of this rich plains region is made up of large, rounded 

 and elongated hills, usually not over a hundred feet 

 in height and with their long axes in the same 

 general northerly and southerly direction. In fact, 

 these tadpole shaped hills, which are most numerous 

 in Wayne County and gradually decrease in numbers 

 as one passes outward from that general region, are 

 arranged concentrically and focus on a point on the 



