REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR AND STATE GEOLOGIST 1901 r39 



'"Waterlime," and is cut into irregular ridges and hollows, 

 which have been subdued by subsequent weathering. For over 

 a mile the channel has only moderate slope, then curving east 

 it declines rapidly and soon drops by a cataract cliff some 30 or 

 40 feet, making a total fall of over 100 feet in 2 miles. 

 This rapid descent is in consequence of the river having cut 

 down through the harder calcareous and gypsiferous rocks to 

 the underlying softer shales. The present topography in the 

 lower part of the channel is irregular, and might suggest 

 morainal drift; but it is cataract work in Salina shales, modified 

 by recent stream work and weathering. The present floor of 

 this channel has an altitude of less than 400 feet near the 

 mouth, and is at least 40 feet below the later plane of Iroquois 

 waters in the vicinity. This channel, leading into the Onondaga 

 depression, was the outlet for the glacial waters from the west 

 till the ice front had melted away from the great mass of 

 moraine and drumlin drift which lies west of Syracuse, thus 

 opening a passage north of the drift mass. 



The business section of Syracuse and all the south part of the 

 city occupy the detrital plain or delta which accumulated in the 

 Onondaga embayment by the great river which cut the Burnet 

 Park channel, and partly through more recent work of the Onon- 

 daga creek. During the life of the glacial river the site of 

 Syracuse was occupied by a shallow lake reaching south up the 

 Onondaga valley. The waters of the Syracuse lake found escape 

 eastward by the conspicuous channel leading east from the city 

 and utilized by the canal and railroads, (see pi. 14-19) This 

 grand river channel is at least J mile wide. The floor 

 of the channel at the divide has altitude of about 415 feet. It 

 is a stretch of flat, swampy ground as yet unused for building 

 and is said to have a great depth of marl under peat. The Erie 

 canal is carried along the south wall of the channel with hight 

 of the water surface 430 feet. This channel, which we will call 

 the Syracuse channel, heads in the city about where the New 

 York Central Railroad crosses over the canal and extends, north 



