498 ' new york State museum 



which persisted until after the melting back of the main ice front 

 withdrew the water supply from this particular channel. The sub- 

 sequent disappearance of the ice tongues left the basins occupied by 

 the present ponds. The small kettle holes were likely formed in the 

 same way, small unmelted ice masses being left during the general 

 retreat of the front, covered with sand and subsequently slowlv 

 melting away. The Upper Saranac lake valley was likely occupied 

 by the largest tongue of all, and the sands were w T ashed upon its 

 north end but were otherwise kept out of the valley. If this be the 

 true explanation of the character of the district it follows that the ice 

 disappeared from it by melting back toward the northeast and that, 

 for a time, the Raquette river carried the upper Saranac drainage. 



There is another and parallel line of identically the same nature 

 on the St Regis quadrangle, extending from the Forestmere lakes 

 down to Bay pond and beyond, with a tributary line coming into 

 it from the north at Brandon. The 'sands are similar and the sur- 

 face characters identical. The writer is not familiar with the dis- 

 trict to the west and does not know whether a connection with 

 the Raquette drainage can be traced or not. The flow may have 

 been down the St Regis. 



There are two small sand-filled channels, one wholly and one 

 partly on the Long lake sheet. The former extends from Coreys to 

 Axton, the route of the old Indian carry. The material is mainly 

 sand though there are a few gravel streaks. A few surface boulders 

 are to be seen, but very few. The surface partakes somewhat of 

 the kame character and this was likely a channel of water dis- 

 charge only during the time that the ice was retreating back over 

 it. It is this sand rilling which prevents the water of'Upper Sara- 

 nac lake from coming south to the Raquette river, to which drain- 

 age it properly belongs, and sends it through the modern channel, 

 over the rock ledge at the Saranac Club (Bartletts carry). The 

 other channel comes down to the Raquette river at the oxbow i 

 mile below Tromblee's (not the Oxbow further downstream) and 

 takes off from Upper Saranac lake at Gilpin bay. It seems also a 

 local channel, used for a short time after the abandonment of the pre- 

 vious one, and before the ice had withdrawn to the north of Upper 

 Saranac lake, opening up the great channel decribed previously. 



Topography as modified by glacial erosion. The all pervading 

 effect of glacial wear in the region was the rounding off, smoothing 

 and polishing of the rock knobs, large and small [pi. 1-3]. Except 



