194 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



stripped of its coating of clav and sand indicating as pointed 

 out in the first part of this report that a powerful stream of 

 water coursed over this path previous to the reexcavation of the 

 Hudson gorge. This strij)j)ed floor has an elevation of about 

 280 feet above the sea near Quaker Springs. The stripped char- 

 actor of the ground is not i)erhaps at first easily' perceived for 

 the reason that the Hudson river slates and shales break down 

 into clays very readily. On many of the farms in this belt the 

 disintegrated and partly decomposed shales are directly invaded 

 by the plow. 



When water flowed over this bench the delta of the Batten kill 

 must have extended in something like its original contour over 

 the gorge of the Hudson and the Coveville channel near Schuyler- 

 ville. The Albany clays must also have filled the Hudson gorge 

 on the south. The occurrence of this spillway marks a new 

 episode in the upi)er Hudson valley, the draining away of Lake 

 Albany, and the beginning of the reexcavation of the Hudson 

 gorge so far south as that had been filled by the clays of this lake. 

 It remains to determine if possible the condition of the geography 

 on the north of this spillway. 



It should be stated that the writer was led to consider the 

 Quaker Springs scourvNay as associated with the outlets of a 

 glacial lake on the north on observing that a plane passed through 

 certain higher water levels in the Adirondack region [see the 

 line T-U, on pi. 28] came to the level of the Hudson terrace 

 precisely where this phenomenon t)f stripping was most marked. 

 There must have been for a considerable length of time a very 

 strong discharge of water along the ice margin and the western 

 wall of the Adirondacks soutlnvard into the Hudson valley, fol- 

 lowing the ice edge throughout this distance so far as the ice 

 still remained in the depressions or discharging into lakes of 

 varying level at the ice front. The line above referred to has 

 been drawn nearly parallel with that taken to indicate the marine 

 limit at a later time. It will be noted that the plane nearly 

 coincides with the top of the glacial terrace at Street Road as 

 well with the later shore liiu^ iin])OSed on the slo])es of that 

 marginal delta. Though what I have taken to be traces of the 

 shores of water bodies occur along this plane of tilting northward 

 to the international boundary in the embajments of the Cham- 



