A NEW SUMMER-RESORT. 



GREEN LAKE, Five Miles South of Syracuse, New York, and One Mile West of 

 Jamesville on the Delaware, LacTcawanna and Western Railroad. 



A Magnificent Exposure of the Upper Helderberg Limestone. Extraordinary 

 Geological Phenomena. Grand and Beautiful Scenery. 



THERE are very remarkable precipices of Onondaga and Corniferous lime- 

 stone, or the Upper Helderberg group, surrounding Green Lake, quite near the 

 old stage-road leading from Albany to Buffalo. It is a pleasant walk of one 

 mile, by a dry turnpike from Jamesville station ; or it can be reached by a short 

 drive from Syracuse, either via Brighton, the shortest road, or by Onondaga 

 Valley, or by the Jamesville turnpike all of them excellent roads with fine 

 scenery. 



On approaching the lake from the turnpike on the south side, the tourist is 

 startled at finding himself, without any notice, on the brink of a yawning gulf, 

 precisely like that of the Niagara Eiver below the Falls, and nearly as deep. 

 The rocks form perpendicular precipices of greater height and extent here, and 

 in this vicinity, than in any other locality of this formation in the United States ; 

 and they present many features of the highest interest to the geologist, and to 

 all who enjoy a scene of beauty and grandeur. 



The brink of the chasm has been fringed by Nature, as no art could have 

 done it, with arbor vitaes (Thuja occidentalis, Z.) and cedars (Cupressus thyoi- 

 des, L.}, growing in the crevices of the limestones, and between these may be 

 obtained beautiful glimpses of the lake, the rocks, and the gorge ; and at many 

 points, on the projecting table rocks, are full views of one of the most surpris- 

 ing and picturesque landscapes in this part of the country. It can be best de- 

 scribed by imagining that a circular mass of the limestones, a quarter of a mile 

 in diameter, had suddenly sunk into the bowels of the earth, thus forming' a 

 chasm on the flat top of the Helderberg range, three hundred feet deep, with 

 very high, perpendicular walls of hard limestone, extending nearly all around the 

 depression. A circular lake of greenish-colored, pure water, of unknown depth, 

 covering about ten acres, fills the whole of the interior. The scene at even a 

 first view is very fine, and is so out of the usual way as greatly to surprise the 

 beholder and leave a lasting impression on his memory. It is not a ravine or 

 cation ; there is no stream of water whatever, and no place where one could 

 ever have existed, and the lake, which glistens deep down in the gulf, has no 

 visible outlet, the bottom of the gap being above the level of the water, which 

 probably finds its outlet through crevices in the underlying limestones. 



But the interest is increased when we have passed around the lake and seen 

 the other depressions with which it is surrounded, and studied their meaning 

 and history, or the method of their formation. First go eastward, toward the 

 only gap in the rocky walls, or the place where the outlet of the lake should 

 be, if it had one. The upper surface of the Onondaga limestone is extensively 

 exposed, forming a flat pavement on the south and north sides of the Jake, ex- 

 tending to the brink of the precipice. The natural joints of the rock are greatly 

 enlarged, forming wide crevices and round holes extending down into the solid 

 rock, every edge and corner being thoroughly rounded and water-worn, in an 

 extraordinary manner, as it could only have been done by the dashing shore- 



