KAME TERRACES AND VALLEY TRAIN. 27 



The last area extends from Chenango Bridge north and east three 

 miles hy the Delaware, Lakawanna and Western railway to the point 

 where the railroad meets the river again, three miles north of Port Crane. 

 This broad valley, which the river is believed to have occupied in pre- 

 glacial time, is blocked with terrace-like deposits, broken by broad, shal- 

 low kettles, the tabular masses and low kame mounds rising to a common 

 level. Here appears to have been a belt of stagnant ice with much melt- 

 ing and deposition, while the Port Crane valley was yet filled with a 

 solid ice-stream. At the eastern end of this series of accumulations is a 

 terrace corresponding to the frontal terrace springing from the Chenango 

 Forks moraine. 



VALLEY TRAIN. 



General character. — No attempt is made to distinguish upon the map 

 the valley train from the flood plain, lacustrine, and marsh deposits 

 which are associated with it. The necessary sectional character of valley 

 train growth is thus described by Professor Salisbury : * 



"As the ice receded northward from the position of the moraine the waters 

 arising from its melting coursed through those parts of the valley successively 

 freed from ice. These waters deposited sand and gravel, especially just beyond 

 the edge of the ice at each successive stage. Since the ice withdrew from south to 

 north, the gravel just north of the moraine, or at least much of it, was deposited 

 before that of the valley still farther north. This general relation holds up to the 

 north line of the state and beyond. The valley gravel was largely deposited in 

 sections, so to speak, commencing at the south." 



The facts in the Chenango valley are quite in keeping with this de. 

 scription of the process. Especially, as we have seen, must we lay aside 

 exaggerated notions of floods coursing with great depth and power and 

 strewing materials throughout the valle}'. Tumultuous action could only 

 have taken place for short distances as the ice receded, and the more, in 

 view of the gentle declivity from Bouckville southward. It is to be re- 

 membered that the abundant, far traveled material in the lower valley 

 had been transported mainly in asubglacial manner during a long period, 

 and thus was ready to receive final distribution with short carriage by 

 the issuing stream. 



Lacustrine beds. — It is evident that at many, if not all, stages of valley 

 filling lakes were larger, more numerous, or more continuous than now. 

 Very many whose basins were shallow have been silted up, and all stages 

 of the process are open to our inspection. This emphasis upon lacustrine 

 conditions is required not only by the numerous small lacustrine plains, 



* Geol. Surv. of New Jersey, Ann. Rep.. 1894, p. 22. 



