Moraines with Raised Beaches of Lake Erie. 9 
contrast to the nearly plane tracts on either side. Along the 
bowlder belt a few knolls and ridges 10-20 feet or more in 
height were noted, but the greater part of the surface is plane. 
On the inner (northwest) border of the moraine and bowlder 
belt the drift is exceedingly thin as far east as the meridian of 
Buffalo and Hamburg and north to the shore of the lake. 
Over extensive areas there is scarcely enough material to con- 
ceal the rock and form a soil, and the average thickness prob- 
ably falls below 10 feet. Further east the drift is, on the 
whole, thicker, and a well defined moraine appears north from 
the one under discussion. 
The moraine referred to is the inner one of the two corre- 
lated with the Sheridan beach. It may be traced from Ham- 
burg eastward to the northern end of the great interlobate belt 
in Wyoming county, which it joins a few miles southeast of 
Alden, near the corners of Genesee, Wyoming and Erie 
counties. Its course may be seen on the accompanying map. 
The continuation of the ice margin beyond Hamburg was 
probably northwestward, there being a more liberal supply of 
bowlders in that direction than in adjoining districts to the 
north or south. 
This moraine also is not a bulky one. Its breadth is seldom 
so much as two miles, and its relief but 20-80 feet. It carries 
fewer bowlders than the one outside of it, but its surface expres- 
sion is decidedly morainic. Some of its knolls are exceedingly 
sharp and there are frequently basins among them. Near the 
western end, one or two miles east from Hamburg, a few basins 
occur on its inner border north from the Crittenden beach. 
Their depth is shght, but they no doubt have been filled greatly 
by the lake waves. The extreme western end of the moraine, 
for a mile or so east of the village of Hamburg, is a gently 
undulating till ridge standing but a few feet above the border- 
ing districts. 
There is need for further study to determine the exact rela- 
tions between the Sheridan beach and this moraine. In the 
district immediately southwest from the terminus of the 
moraine, where we should expect the beach to appear, the 
conditions are not favorable for a beach ridge to be formed, 
there being a bluff-like escarpment of shale very thinly coated 
with drift. This escarpment rises in a series of steps or shelves 
to a height far above the level of the Sheridan beach. It is 
evident that these sbelves are mainly due to other agencies 
than wave-action, and it becomes difficult under such condi- 
tions to decide how far wave action has extended. The pres- 
ence of water-worn or wave-washed material, or even of 
gravelly ridges resembling beaches, may not be satisfactory 
evidence of the lakes occupancy, for the ice sheet has carried 
