158 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Lorraine beds. Our purpose, however, is not to explain, but to 

 encourage those who hke to exercise their mental powers, not only 

 for their own advantage and pleasure, but to increase the sum total 

 of human knowledge. 



Much might be written about the Haven Bay fault but enough 

 has been said to establish its peculiar value as an index of the 

 vast changes which may be brought about by long-continued action 

 of natural causes. The '' Mills of God " may grind " slowly " 

 but their action never ceases. After all it is not the spectacular 

 that counts in the long run. 



One of these days we shall be able to narrate fully the changes 

 which took place in the Adirondacks and the Champlain valley 

 after Lorraine times. At present we know that the carving which 

 gave rise to our hills, valleys and plains was accomplished in part 

 by sun, wind, frost, running water and the powerful action of 

 thick ice sheets or glaciers moving southerly. The last of. these, 

 the Wisconsin ice sheet, brought many a rock specimen to Cliff 

 Haven from the far north and these " boulders " are strewn in 

 remarkable profusion along the lake shore from the bathing beach 

 to the steamboat dock. Glaciated surfaces are still to be seen on 

 some of the rock ledges on the road to Hotel Champlain and in 

 figure 6 we present a view of a fresh surface just west of the road 

 by the " bluff," which was cleaned off for quarrying purposes in 

 191 5. This figure well shows the plaining effect of the moving 

 ground moraine. A part of this moraine is still seen in contact with 

 the stone just as it was left at the close of the glacial period. 



As the ice barrier melted away at the north it allowed an invasion 

 of the sea, called the Hochelagan sea, and wave action cleaned off 

 many rock surfaces. Just before crossing the Little Ausable river 

 on the road from Plattsburg to Peru one passes by a gravel pit 

 which is part of a recent beach line and, which contains many 

 species of sea shells whose present home is along our North Atlantic 

 coast. The elevation of this beach is about 200 feet above the 

 present Lake Champlain surface. When the land had sufficiently 

 recovered from the " depressing influence " of the great ice sheet 

 to be able, through recoil, to lift this " Peru beach " above water, 

 the waves of the Hochelagan sea still beat against the Bluff Point 

 mass. When this sea surface had dropped to a level about 80 feet 

 above that of Lake Champlain, wave action removed part of the 

 ground moraine seen in figure 6, and the level sod-covered shelf 

 in the upper right corner is a present witness of deeds of a dim 

 past. At a still later date the receding waters began to cut a shelf 



