REPORT OP THE DIRECTOR AND STATE GEOLOGIST 1901 rl5 



line, northeastward through the "grape belt" of Westfield, Port- 

 land, Brocton and Fredonia, past Forestville and Silver Creek 

 to Cattaraugus creek, a distance of 40 miles. Throughout this 

 extent there are two well marked water levels, about 70 feet 

 apart. The higher is the extension of the " Belmore " beach, 

 which was made by the waters of Lake Whittlesey. The lower 

 is the " Forest " beach, produced by Lake Warren. Above the 

 " Forest " bars from 10 to 25 feet is a continuous series of strong 

 bars which represent the "Arkona " beach, now regarded as an 

 earlier and higher level of Lake Warren. 



During another season's work, it is proposed to reexamine 

 some sections of the beaches and to extend the survey north- 

 eastward through Erie county to the end of the series. Part 

 of this work has already been done. Mr Frank Leverett has 

 shown that the higher beaches disappear in Erie county, and 

 only the lower or Warren shore line continues. Professor Fair- 

 child traced this lower shore line eastward from Crittenden to 

 the meridian of Rochester several years ago. 



Attention being concentrated on the mapping of the strong 

 and closely associated shore lines, but little search was made 

 for the beaches of the predicated Lake Dana, about 180 feet 

 lower than the Warren, but some detached bars strengthen the 

 expectation of finding this water level in the Erie basin. 



For the accurate mapping of these several beaches, it is de- 

 sirable to have the topographic sheets of the quadrangles imme- 

 diately south and east of the Buffalo quadrangle. Indeed the 

 entire row of sheets on the parallel of Buffalo are needed for 

 the full investigation of the glacial lake history. As the study 

 of ancient lake phenomena makes so large use of land altitudes, 

 the topographic sheets are specially requisite. But the topog- 

 raphers should have sufficient knowledge of the genesis of land 

 forms to prevent their running contour lines up and down 

 across conspicuous horizontal beaches, as in the present sheets. 



Economic geology 

 In economic geology Dr Heinrich Ries of Cornell University 

 has been occupied with the study of the peat and marl deposits 



