522 J. H. STOLLER HISTORY OF MOHAWK-HUDSON REGION 



sands which filled those portions of the old rock depression where Sara- 

 toga Lake and Bound Lake are now located. 



The depression occupied by Saratoga Lake lies within the broad path 

 of the two watercourses that extend northerly and northeasterly from the 

 East Line district. The inference is that the present lake owes its origin 

 to the erosive work of the Iroquois-Mohawk currents in sweeping away 

 the Pleistocene deposits from the rock-floor now forming the bed of the 

 lake. The difference of more than 100 feet in elevation between the rock 

 bottom of the Ballston Channel and the rock-floor of Saratoga Lake was 

 a determining condition in the origin of the Lake. 



The present shore features of Saratoga Lake are in accord with this 

 explanation of its origin. On the east shore is a rocky bluff with a mass 

 of resistant rock (Snake Hill) jutting out into the lake. The rushing 

 currents, in their northeastward course from the Ballston Channel, strik- 

 ing against the slopes of the rock hills east of the lake, formed this shore 

 bluff by erosion. At a later stage in the development of the lake, when 

 the mass of resistant rock stood out as a promontory, the currents were 

 divided by it, and those deflected southward eroded the clay bluffs which 

 stand back from the present margins of the lake at its southern end. 



These currents which swept across the Saratoga Lake area moved 

 northeastward and then eastward to discharge into the waters occupying 

 the Hudson Valley. Erosion features along the valley of Fish Creek, the 

 present outlet of Saratoga Lake, and at levels above the present valley 

 bottom afford evidence of the work of broad and strong currents. The 

 original features of this portion of the Iroquois-Mohawk Valley are, how- 

 ever, obscured on the north side of Fish Creek by sands that have drifted 

 in in the recent period; but farther to the east and southward, from 

 Grangerville to Coveville, erosion features due to stream-work are clearly 

 shown, as observed by Woodworth. 



ORIGIN OF COVEVILLE INLET 



The water-swept area south of Grangerville is margined on its west 

 side by undisturbed Pleistocene sands at approximately the 260-foot con- 

 tour. The clearly defined sand terrace, two miles west of Coveville, 

 trenched by a system of small streams of postglacial development, stands 

 at 260 to 280 feet elevation. These areas of sands represent the Coveville 

 delta stage in the subsidence of Lake Albany. The water-swept expanse 

 at the 200-foot level, east of the terrace plain, extends to the recess in 

 the rock wall of the Hudson Valley at Coveville. 



The deduction to be drawn from these data is that it was the Iroquois- 



