184 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The marine occupation played the least part of any of the ancient 

 stands of the waters in the formation of the topography of Crown 

 Point for the reason that it was able to flood only the lowest, and 

 thus the smallest, portion of the embayment. The marine waters 

 filled a wedge-shaped trough in the axis of the valley now occupied 

 by Putnam's creek with the sharp end of the wedge pointing west- 

 ward. They must have reached as far west as the locality of 

 Factory ville (maps 4 and 5). To the north and to the south of 

 this wedge-shaped area they were able to cover only a narrow strip 

 of ground fringing the bases of the mountains. Here was deposited 

 heavy clay — a part of the Vergennes heavy clay series — that forms 

 the floor of the main Champlain valley throughout Vermont and a 

 narrow strip along the New York side of the lake. 



Putnam's creek entered the apex of the bay from the southwest, 

 and Brevoort brook reached it near the middle of the south side. 

 Both these streams were given greatly increased force by the lower- 

 ing of their base level, and must have cut down rapidly through 

 the soft alluvium of the old lake beds which had been recently 

 exposed. Reaching the end of their course, and coming to rest 

 in the waters of the bay, these streams deposited their heavy loads 

 of silt over the bottom and built it up nearly to the 200 foot contour 

 line (Peet, 1904, p. 460). This formation flared to the eastward 

 as a broad, deltalike fan. 



Before the close of the marine epoch the bay must have been a 

 shallow, marshy area, probably largely overgrown with water- 

 loving vegetation through which the streams meandered in shifting 

 channels. Two of these channels can still be seen on the northern 

 portion of this old delta. Where the Port Henry road north of 

 Crown Point village climbs to the flat top of Indian ridge it 

 bifurcates, and one branch turns eastward. Just south of this 

 branch, in the pasture east of Mrs Todd's barn, is a clean-cut 

 U-shaped channel deepening to the eastward as it cuts the old 

 delta (plate 6, lower figure). North of this same road another 

 ancient channel skirts the base of the clay knolls that form the 

 higher part of Indian ridge in this locality (plate 6, upper figure). 

 It continues eastward as far as the present lake and crosses the high- 

 way between the houses of George Bevins and George Barnett 

 (map 5). 



North of Putnam's creek this delta forms flat plains of sand 

 and loam from the 120 foot contour on the east side near the present 

 lake up to the 200 foot contour. Across the valley is the southern 

 portion of this delta deposit, severed now from the northern half 

 by the creek (plate i, upper figure). Like it, however, it slopes up 



