4G0 Agricultural Manual 



TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS 



The surface is generally level or gently undulating and is 

 divided into two distinct parts or terraces by a ridge extending 

 east and west. The lake shore is a bluff ten to thirty feet high, 

 composed of sharp sand or other heavier soils, from the summit 

 of which the lower terrace slopes gradually upward to the foot of 

 an elevation known as the mountain escarpment, where it attains 

 a height of 100 to 150 feet above the lake. This escarpment 

 extends east and west through the northern part of the towns of 

 Royalton and Lockport, and near the center of Cambria and 

 Lewiston. In the eastern part of the county the ridge has an 

 elevation of SO to 100 feet, gradually rising in the west to an 

 elevation of 150 feet above the lower terrace. Running east and 

 west about three miles from the escarpment is a gravelly and 

 sandy ridge with two short spurs some ten to twenty feet above 

 the gradual northern decline of the Ontario plain. The southern 

 half of the county is quite level. It descends slightly toward the 

 south, and terminates in Tonawanda Creek, which forms the 

 greater part of the southern boundary of the county. 



The principal streams in the county are the Twelvemile, Eigh- 

 teenmile, Fish, Bergholtz, Bull, Sawyers, Golden Hill, and 

 Johnson creeks, all emptying into Lake Ontario ; and Mud Creek, 

 a tributary of Tonawanda Creek on the southern border. The 

 streams that flow north have worn deep ravines in the drift 

 deposits, and they are frequently interrupted by slight falls. 



Nearly the entire surface is covered with deep deposits of drift, 

 rocks appearing only on top and sides of the mountain ridge and 

 the ravines of the streams. Niagara limestone furnishes an excel- 

 lent building material and a good quality of lime, the principal 

 quarries being situated in the vicinity of Lockport and Pekin. 

 To the iSTiagara limestone we are indebted for the falls of 

 Niagara, as its great solidity and thickness protects the shale 

 beneath, which, being worn away, leaves the projecting stretch of 

 limestone to form the edge of the first precipice over which the 

 cataract pours. 



A strip of land extending from the summit of the mountain 

 ridge about two miles to the south is covered with a sandy loam, 

 and the remainder of the upper terrace is clayey, largely inter- 



