GLACIAL AND POST-GLACIAL HISTORY 625 



with either form of front. The highest Saranac gravel plateau indi- 

 cates the presence of the ice at its northern margin, and possibly 

 some of the phenomena of the western margin indicate its presence 

 there, but this plateau is not well known. It wnll be referred to 

 again. 



On the whole, then, the moraines of the west side of the Cham- 

 plain Valley, at high levels, indicate a retreat of the ice with a general 

 north-south or northeast-southwest front, and with the body of the 

 ice in the valley. At lower levels, in general, no embayment in the 

 ice-front seems to be required by the gravel plateaus, although 

 deposition of some of the stratified drift in the water body is difficult 

 to understand if the ice occupied the lowlands, and there was no 

 embayment. The high-level Saranac gravel plateau or delta is 

 probably an example. It seems necessary to believe that when the 

 moraines at high levels near Harkness and west of Cadyville were 

 being built local lakes existed at the front of the ice in the valleys of 

 streams now flowing into Lake Champlain, at levels higher than the 

 level of the water body in the Champlain Valley. 



HIGHER GLACIAL LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 



As the ice retreated through the Champlain Valley, an uphft took 

 place at the south which separated the water body in this valley from 

 the Hudson water body south of Fort Edward and inaugurated the 

 history of a water body which Baldwin first named Glacial Lake Cham- 

 plain. In view of the fact that another glacial lake may be represented 

 by the upper part of the lower series of terraces, it seems best to call 

 it Higher Glacial Lake Champlain. This lake drained southward 

 through the Fort Edward Valley and across the barrier south of 

 Fort Edward. Whether the Hudson water body continued to exist 

 for any length of time after the inauguration of Higher Glacial Lake 

 Champlain is not known. Indeed, it is not known that its dis- 

 appearance may not have been on the appearance of Higher Glacial 

 Lake Champlain. By this time, or earher, those pecuhar conditions 

 which it appears had existed through much of the history of the 

 Hudson water body, and had prevented the making of distinct wave- 

 wrought features, ceased to be effective, and the upper series of 

 wave-wrought features, which may be seen from Street Road north. 



