The Parallel Drift-Hills of Western JVew Yorh. 253 



age. These, of course, are parallel with the including ridges. 

 The larger valleys are generally cuji-shaped depressions in the 

 drift, especially those south of the Niagara out-crop, through 

 which the minor streams flow with a sluggish current. Many 

 of these have an area of several square miles, and, at no very 

 distant day, have been the basins of shallow lakes. A few lakes 

 occupying such basins still remain, and are delineated upon the 

 map. Crusoe Lake, in Wayne County, and Duck Lake, a few 

 miles distant, in Cayuga, are examples. The former is situated 

 in a marsh, and is almost unapproachable ; the latter lies be- 

 tween parallel ridges, with tamarack swamps extending nortli 

 and south from its extremities, indicating its former limits, and 

 foreshadowing its future obliteration. Indeed, in this region, 

 the presence of tamarack in a swampy valle}^ indicates that 

 there was once a lakelet. All such valleys are cup-shaped, and 

 so far as I have observed, the lip of the cup is composed of 

 drift, and all have been filled to the brim with vegetable matter 

 in the form of muck or peat. 



The Niagara limestone forms the water-shed which divides 

 the small streams that flow directly to Lake Ontario, from those 

 flowing southward to the river which courses along a valley in 

 the Salina. As shown by the map, this one stream has several 

 names. As Mud Creek, it unites with the Canandaigua outlet 

 to form Clyde River. Clyde Kiver unites with the outlet of 

 Cayuga and Seneca lakes, at Montezuma, where the stream takes 

 the name of Seneca River. This flows in a general easterly 

 course, gathering the waters of OAvasco, Skaneateles and On- 

 ondaga lakes, until it unites with the outlet of Oneida, when it 

 becomes the Oswego, and pursues a northwest course to Lake 

 Ontario. Even this, now, after flowing for ages in its present 

 channel, curiously exhibits the cup-shaped character of the north 

 and south valleys, across which it makes its way in a general 

 easterly course. 



Throughout Wayne County it is remarkably tortuous, as ex- 

 hibited by the map, but not account of meandering through a 

 ])lain, as is often the case with crooked streams. On the con- 

 trary, in many places its current is moderately rapid, and many 

 of its crooks and turns were made in finding its way eastward 

 through ranges of north and south liills. Though nowhere ex- 



