Finger- Lake region of New York. 299 



that the land at the upper part of Seneca lake rises in six miles 

 to upland pastures nearly 2000 feet above the bed of the lake.* 

 The continuity of cliffs for 15 miles along the west coast .near 

 Watkins, and the frequency of rock exposures on the high 

 lands, forbid the belief that such gorges exist. 



The inference from these considerations is that the pre- 

 glacial river which has been developed into Seneca lake must 

 have occupied a level many hundreds of feet above the present 

 bed of the lake. 



Some drift-buried valleys certainly exist. One such, prob- 

 ably with a meridional course, seems to lie to the east of Aurora, 

 where two E.-W. ravines appear to cut it, one of which ex- 

 hibits a till-section 100 feet thick, with bottom not reached. 

 However this be, there still exists a large system of valleys, 

 with banks several hundred feet high, subsidiary to the lake 

 valleys and in several places communicating with them. These 

 valleys are rock-cut, and often show rocky bottoms ; they run 

 mainly parallel to the lakes, but occasionally branch in a trans- 

 verse direction. They run straight through the line of terminal 

 moraine. Their trough-like aspect north of the moraine points 

 to probable widening and deepening, as in the case of their 

 much bigger brothers, the lakes. 



As an illustration, take the large valley, 20 miles long, enter- 

 ing Cayuga lake 6 miles north of Ithaca. It is cumbered with 

 some drift, but its walls rise 400 feet above its bed, in full 

 sight from the lake. 



Perhaps the case of certain upland valleys will add con- 

 firmation to these views. East of Watkins there is a system 

 of these at 400-600 feet above the lake. The main drainage 

 of this system is at present southward, but it communicates 

 with the Seneca valley by two wide gaps, allowing several 

 short streams to enter the lake, which they do by a sudden 

 plunge — one of them cutting the beautiful Havana glen in its 

 descent. These streams must have fallen 1,000 feet in three 

 miles in order to have reached the Seneca valley bottom at its 

 present level. In like manner the stream which has excavated 

 the celebrated Watkins Glen descends about 500 feet in its 

 last mile through a canyon with vertical walls, while its upper 

 five miles are mostly in an old valley with moderate grades. 



Again, Dundee, situated three miles from the west shore 

 and ten miles north of Watkins, stands 600 feet above Seneca 

 lake. It occupies a site apparently near the mouth of an old 

 valley, bounded by rock-hills from 300 to 400 feet high, and 

 displaying a rocky bottom in the stream at Dundee. The 

 valley has four or five branches, extending six miles above the 



* Seneca lake bottom is 177 feet below tide; high points W. of Watkins, near 

 2100 feet above tide. 



