22 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



plunged into the lake basin beneath, originally the plunge-basin of 

 the lost river. This lake and others of less size have been com- 

 monly known in the vicinity as the " Green Lakes." They reach 

 extraordinary depths for such little water bodies and their water, 

 seldom stirred by storms, is of wonderful clearness, and on days 

 when the skies are blue have a deep emerald green color. 



The Jamesville lake, whose water surface covers about nine 

 acres, with its horse-shoe cataract cliff, the smaller " dry lake " to 

 the west, their connecting rock channels and adjoining potholes, 

 have recently been acquired by the State Museum, through the 

 generosity of a private citizen, in order to preserve its extraordinary 

 features from invasion. Unfortunately for the sentiment which 

 attaches to places of this kind and their high educational value, 

 the present increase in the demand for cement and cement rock con- 

 stituted an 'immediate menace, and the splendid amphitheaters 

 among these rocks afford a particularly inviting point of attack for 

 such enterprises. Happily for the people of the State, for posterity 

 and for the better sentiment of the community, the appreciative 

 interest of Mrs Frederick Ferris Thompson has prevented the 

 threatened destruction. Mrs Thompson has acquired an area cover- 

 ing about one hundred fifteen acres of land and taking in parts of 

 several farm properties and has made this property over to the 

 Regents of the University as a geological exhibit of the State 

 Museum, giving it without restraint as a memorial of her father, 

 former Governor ]\Iyron H. Clark, whose name it is to bear : The 

 Clark Reservation. 



The geological history of the place is one of much fascination, 

 and while people were wondering whence these mysterious bodies 

 of water came — these deep, funnel-shaped lakes without inlets or 

 outlets — and what agencies could have caused the singular gorges 

 and majestic amphitheaters, some thinking that they were the 

 abandoned and water-filled craters of old volcanoes, others that 

 these strange caverns were produced by the sinking of the rock beds 

 or the solution of the limestone strata or of the salt beds which lie 

 beneath them, the suggestion as to their true nature seems to have 

 been originally made by Mr G. K. Gilbert. Subsequently Prof. E. C. 

 Quereau, while located at Syracuse University, gave with some 

 detail and illustration the approximate solution of their origin and 

 history. Later in the more protracted and detailed work of the 

 Geological Survey, the portrayal of these east and west channels 

 and their great significance to the geological history of the State 

 has been on many occasions demonstrated by Prof. H. L. Fairchild. 



