244 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



about lUO leet above sea level as it is todav. The lludsoii erorjre 

 from Coveville southward must have been largely cleared of the 

 clays and other glacial deposits. 



Gradually the filling of clays in the old gorge through which 

 the Hudson now passes Schuylerville was removed and the dis- 

 charge from Lake Vermont fell into this lower channel reducing 

 the level of the waters on the north till they fell to the level 

 of the pres'ent divide between the Hudson and Champlain drain- 

 age in the Wood creek valley just northeas-t of Fort Edward, 

 where the lowest point in the hight of land between the St 

 Lawrence and the Hudson valley is only 147 feet above the sea. 

 This stage of Lake Vermont, when all traces of a lake had 

 disappeared about the Fort Edward district, found the Hudson 

 from Fort Edward southward a much more powerful river than 

 it is now. 



During the development of Lake Vermont and as soon as the 

 ice had withdrawn from the northern slope of the Adirondacks 

 to the very border of that district, a powerful discharge of 

 water coursed along the ice front from the St Lawrence valley 

 to the eastward and fell into the lake near West Chazy. The 

 course of this torrent is marked by the so called " flat rock " areas 

 from Covey hill southward through Altona. Somewhat later, when 

 discharge at a lower level was permissible, the waters excavated a 

 gorge with a fall at its head on the south side of Covey hill. The 

 Gulf with its lakelets stands as a silent monument of this van- 

 ished river. 



At a yet later stage, following the stand of the waters in 

 Lake Vermont under the control of the Fort Edward outlet, 

 the ice barrier on the north began to give way; the waters 

 leaked out northward, we are at liberty to su})pose, thus lower- 

 ing the lake level step by step; and then when the ice was no 

 longer a barrier the sea came in at a lower level, the position 

 of which seems to be determined, from a study of the upper limit 

 of beaches on Covey hill, and by the upper limit of shells and 

 the related data in the Champlain valley. As pointed out in the 

 foxt, the sea appears not to have extended farther south than 

 Whitehall at whicli time the land on the south was as In'jjli if not 

 higher than now. 



