LOWERED DIVIDES 235 



lowed by the main line of the Lehigh Valley railroad, and toward the 

 east, past Van Etten, by a branch of this railroad. The present divides 

 are low drift masses, and any old divides that may have existed have 

 been completely obliterated, so that no rock is encountered in the stream 

 course. 



Tiougnioga valley. — Carney * has shown that the headwaters of Fall 

 creek, instead of following the broadening valley toward Ithaca, turn 

 southward at Cortland into a narrowing valley, through a gorge section, 

 evidently the site of an old divide, and thence into a broadening valley. 

 As has been stated above, this doubly flaring valley has tributaries hang- 

 ing well above the present valley bottom on both sides of the narrow sec- 

 tion. Drift fills the valley, till and moraine occur on its sides, and no rock 

 is encountered in its bottom, even in the narrowest part (see plate 39, 

 figure 1). 



Willseyville valley. — Between the headwaters of Six Mile and Willsey ville 

 creeks, on the Dryden sheet, there is a deep, gorge-like valley, with walls 

 so steep that they are not cleared of forest (see plate 41, figure 2). The 

 valley bottom is occupied by extensive moraine accumulations, and no 

 rock appears in it, nor any well defined divide, the waters at present part- 

 ing in the moraine. Toward the narrow gorge portion the valley narrows 

 from each side, indicating the location of a former divide. At present two 

 railroads pass with easy grade through this peculiar valley. Tributary 

 valleys, with bottoms below the level of the moraine filling of the main 

 valley, enter it in the narrow gorge portion. 



Other instances. — It would be possible to multiply the instances of this 

 condition from the southern central portion of New York. For example, 

 confining attention to the Watkins Glen quadrangle, Post creek, on the 

 western side of the quadrangle southwest of Watkins (see plate 37), 

 flows from a broad into a narrowing valley. There is no definite divide 

 in the Burdett-Reynoldsville valley northeast of Watkins, nor between 

 the upper Taghanic and Cayuta Lake valleys, nor the Pony Hollow and 

 Butternut valleys (see plates 37 and 38). It may be said, in fact, that 

 there is no single case of a well defined rock divide between the head- 

 waters of the main branches of any of the larger streams on the Watkins 

 Glen quadrangle. 



Texas hollow. — This valley is one of the most peculiar in the Watkins 

 Glen quadrangle (see plate 42, figure 1). It is a deep valley with sides 

 so steep that for the greater part of the distance the forest remains, 

 and no road ascends to the upland ; and it is so narrow at the bottom 

 that, excepting at the ends, there are only a few small, poor farms. The 



♦Journal of Geography, vol. ii, 1903, pp. 115-124. 



