r42 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



canal, " Clinton's ditch," followed the foot of the bank, where 

 the West Shore Railroad now passes. 



In the midst of the embaynient at Chittenango is a great mass 

 of morainal drift overlying rock which has a very prominent 

 bank on the northwest flank (see pi. 24). South of, or behind, this 

 islandlike mass is a large river channel about the dimensions 

 of the Syracuse channel. Whether the floor is rock or alluvium 

 has not been determined, but in either case the form and surface 

 are due to the sweeping by a great river before the ice had 

 opened a passage north of the outlying hill. The canal follows 

 the north side of the broad channel. 



At the east end of the Chittenango channel the waters were 

 thrown against the steep northwest slope of another rock mass 

 and another high bank was formed, a mile northeast of Sullivan, 

 comparable to those already described east and west of Kirk- 

 ville. One mile farther east another good bank occurs. Both 

 of these banks are plainly visible from the New York Central 

 Railroad, a mile distant, and more clearly from the West Shore, 

 which passes closer. At an earlier phase than the cutting of the 

 channels here noticed the glacial waters had flowed south of the 

 hills, excavating a channel 2 miles east of Sullivan. The 

 latest stream cutting in this section formed a bank about 2 

 miles east of Chittenango station and close to the West Shore 

 Railroad. 



The next bank to the east occurs 1J miles west of Can- 

 astota. For a mile it stretches along the railroads and into 

 the village. A mile west of the village the New York Central 

 tracks have cut away the point of the salient, and there de- 

 stroyed the original bank, while a filling of the West Shore has 

 obscured another section. This bluff, with its extension east of 

 the village, shows well in its curvatures the effects of stream 

 meandering. Toward the western end the river was compelled 

 to swing around the rock slope in a curve convex to the north. 

 In reaction from this the current veered to the south, so that 

 near the village the bank is concave to the north (see pi. 25). An 

 earlier channel lies south of the hill, 1 mile southwest of 



