1897.] The Swamps of Oswego County, N. Y. 695 
thought it would be unsafe to venture in there in spring or 
autumn. To the north of Granny’s Orchard proper the 
wooded belt stretches away for several miles. Catfish Creek, 
a small stream, flows through the northern end of the swamp, 
flowing north into Lake Ontario. The small, sluggish stream 
draining Granny’s Orchard flows south into Oneida Lake. It 
is evident that the whole swamp was once a large lake, and 
whether it drained into Lake Ontario or Oneida Lake remains 
to be investigated. The gulf cut through the whole hill where 
Catfish Creek leaves the swamp suggests that it may have been 
cut through after the lake had partially filled. I have not yet 
had an opportunity to study the outlet to the south. 
ORIGIN OF THE MOOR FLORA. 
If we may judge from the actual conditions existing now in 
Arctic regions, immediately succeeding the glacial epoch this 
whole region was clothed with a vegetation resembling that 
now existing in our moors, indeed, resembling it much more 
than does any other feature of our present flora with the pos- 
sible exception of the Alpine plants still persisting on our 
mountain tops. It is indeed an extraordinary circumstance 
that our lowest (in altitude) regions and our highest regions 
should have preserved to us a flora which is, for the most part, 
extinct. Since the Alpine plants and many of the bog plants 
draw nearer and nearer together so far as situation goes, as we 
go northward, until finally we find them mingled, our state- 
ment of the case is a correct one, and confirms the idea that 
our moor floras are remnants of an Arctic vegetation once pre- 
dominating here. 
THE RAPID ACCUMULATION OF MATERIAL IN THE DEPRESSIONS. 
Although such a condition may not have actually existed, 
we may assume, for the purpose of illustration, that one of the ` 
depressions caused by the ice in this movement was left naked 
by the sudden lowering of the water level in the region. A 
lake would be left in the depression. The moisture held in 
the soil of the surrounding hills would steadily gravitate to- 
ward the lake and form springs. The water from these would 
often more than offset the loss of water from the surface of the 
