REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I915 189 



its valley bottom. Especially on the south side it has left terraces 

 beautifully illustrating this process. They may be seen to good 

 advantage in a series of four as one ascends from Ely's mill on the 

 creek to Crown Point village. Other stream terraces may be seen 

 along the road between Crown Point and Factoryville. 



After the marine waters left the embayment by reason of the land 

 rising at the north and shutting off their ingress via the St Lawrence 

 valley, the present Lake Champlain came into existence. It is only 

 a puny remnant of that splendid body of water that filled the basin 

 between the Green mountains and the Adirondacks as the glacier 

 retreated. It occupies now only a long narrow trough at the west 

 side of the valley where in early times the Silurian limestones were 

 broken away from the base of the Adirondacks against which they 

 abutted. 



The early settlers regarded Bulwagga bay (Port- Henry quad- 

 rangle) as the head of Lake Champlain. The true basin of the lake 

 runs off steeply near the end of Crown Point peninsula. On early 

 maps that portion of the lake between Crown Point peninsula and 

 Whitehall is designated as " Wood creek " or " River Flowing into 

 Lake Champlain." Peet (1904, p. 468) regards this portion as a 

 river valley drowned by setting back of the lake waters due to the 

 uplift at the north. He locates the delta of this stream by soundings 

 on the lake charts about 5 miles northeast of Port Henry. This 

 delta is now submerged 50 to 75 feet beneath the surface of the lake. 



Putnam's creek, a tributary to this drowned river, is likewise 

 flooded in its lower reaches. Its recent valley floor — for it had 

 formerly reached base level — is now being silted up and aggraded. 

 Degradation has ceased. 



8 RESUME AND CONCLUSIONS 



1 At the retreat of the Hudson-Champlain valley-glacier, the area 

 uncovered by the ice was occupied by open waters of wide extent. 



2 These open waters extended as far north as the ice mass that 

 blocked the northern portal of the Champlain valley. 



3 They registered their existence at different stages by well- 

 defined shore line phenomena. These phenomena are all well 

 developed in the region about Crown Point, and indicate long- 

 continued stand of waters at each of these stages, with brief or 

 transitory stands between them. 



4 The lowest stage was marked at Crown Point by the forma- 

 tion of a large delta plain by Putnam's creek in the lowest part of 



