170 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Between these outlying reefs and the larger island was a shallow 

 bottom over which the waves from the north rolled clear to the base 

 of Breed hill. Wave action truncated and smoothed the till covering 

 of this portion of the hilltop.^ In this shoal was a shallow lagoon or 

 pool. Its location is still marked by two small wet basins in which 

 cat-tail flags and other aquatic vegetation find habitat. 



6 SPECIAL PHENOMENA OF THE CROWN POINT EMBAYMENT 



MORAINES 



Ground Moraine 



The whole valley is probably lined with a ground moraine or till 

 sheet of blue clay, although it is concealed in many places by later 

 deposits of alluvium. This clay has become oxidized to brown in 

 places where it is exposed. It contains great numbers of irregular 

 boulders which represent all the kinds of rock that occur to the 

 north in the glacier's line of flow. This till sheet covers the surface 

 of Sugar hill from its base just above the loam flat where Crown 

 Point village stands, up over its top and well over the top of Breed 

 hill. In the southwestern and western part of the embayment it 

 is exposed wherever the streams have cut deeply enough through 

 the overlying alluvial deposits to reach it. It covers also the area 

 north of Putnam's creek and east of Bulwagga mountain. In the 

 lowest part of the valley, west of Bly's mill pond the creek has 

 exposed a bed of heavy blue clay along its south bank, and stony 

 moraine east of the mill. 



Lateral Moraines 



Morainic deposits are a well-marked feature of the glaciation of 

 the Crown Point embayment. Marginal moraines mark the outline 

 of the ice tongue that pushed into the embayment from the main 

 valley. These moraines are of coarse material — usually mere 

 heaps of rubble — and skirt the bases of the mountains along the 

 northwest and southwest sides of the embayment at an altitude of 

 between six and eight hundred feet. None occurs on the south side, 

 but here the till sheet lies exposed. In the pass between Buck and 

 Dibble mountains are morainic heaps of rubble with deep kettle 

 holes in them (plate 2). They extend well out into the open 



1 A well bored on the top of Sugar hill passed through about 50 feet of 

 unmodified till before penetrating bedrock. 



