WATER BISCUIT OF SQUAW ISLAND 195 



THE WATER BISCUIT OF SQUAW ISLAND, CANANDAI- 



GUA LAKE, N. Y. 



BY JOHN M. CLARKE 



(Plates 12-15) 



Canandaigua lake is one of the well-known chain of Finger 

 lakes in western New York which hang like pendants from be- 

 low the south shore of Lake Ontario. This pretty sheet of water, 

 about 14 miles long in its gently sinuous course, is a short section 

 of an ancient waterway impounded by a dam of drift at its south- 

 ern end. Near the lower or northern end of the lake, where its 

 waters touch the village of Canandaigua, is its single island, a 

 little spot of gravel and sand which the counter currents have 

 piled up. Ever since Gen. Sullivan in 1779 carried firebrand and 

 death among the Indians of this section, this bit of land has been 

 known as Squaw island, and according to local tradition, here 

 the women of the fighting braves took refuge from their burning 

 villages. The adjoining sketch map shows the position of this 

 island with reference to the shores of the lake. It will be seen 

 that it lies west of the axis of the lake and opposite the em- 

 hoticliure of a little inlet. Its form is slightly elongated north 

 and south, and from its northern end to the east side of the reedy 

 cove, where the inlet comes in, a sand bar extends, along which at 

 low water one can wade to the mainland. The inlet, which is 

 known as Sucker brook, is a little stream which has grown 

 smaller as the boys who played about it have grown to 

 manhood. It heads in the northern part of the township of 

 Canandaigua and in the upper reaches of its brief, meandering 

 course of 8 or 10 miles it passes over a region of limestone 

 and calcereous shales, cuts, kames and till piles where limestone 

 boulders abound. In this way its waters have become well im- 

 pregnated with lime. The north shores of Squaw island and the 

 lake bottom about it and over its northward sand bar are covered 

 with flat, whitish calcareous cakes of circular or oval shape, in 



