NOTES AND ILLUSTRATION-. 93 



and deep, and you pass through immense rocks principally of granite interspersed with 

 limestone. In various places you observe profound excavations in the rocks made by the 

 agitation of pebbles in the fissures, and in some places the river is not more than twenty 

 yards wide. As you approach the western extremity of the hills you find them about 

 half a mile distant from summit to summit, and at least three hundred feet high. 

 The rocks are composed of granite, and many of them are thirty or forty feet thick, and 

 the whole mountain extends, at least, half a mile from east to west. You see them piled 

 on each other like Ossa on Pelion, and in other places huge fragments scattered about, 

 indicating evidently a violent rupture of the waters through this place, as if they had 

 been formerly dammed up and had forced a passage ; and in all directions you behold 

 great rocks exhibiting rotundities, points, and cavities, as if worn oy the violence of the 

 waves, or hurled from their ancient positions. 



The general appearance of the little falls indicates the former existence of a great lake 

 above, connected with the Oneida lake ; and as the waters forced a passage here and 

 receded, the flats above were formed and composed several thousand acres of the richest 

 land. Rome being the highest point on the lake, the passage of the waters on the east 

 side left it bare, the Oneida lake gradually receded on the west side, and formed the great 

 marsh or swamp, now surrounding the waters on Wood creek. The physiognomy of the 

 country from the commencement of Wood creek to its termination in the Oneida lake, 

 confirms this hypothesis. The westerly and northwesterly winds continually drive the 

 sand of the lake towards the creek, and you can distinctly perceive the alluvions increasing 

 eastward by the accumulation of sand, and the formation of new ground. Near the lake 

 you observe sand without trees ; then to the east a few scattering 1rees, and as you 

 proceed in that direction the woods thicken. The whole country from the commence- 

 ment to the termination of Wood creek looks like made ground. In digging the canal in 

 Wood creek, pine trees have been found twelve feet deep. An old boatman several 

 years ago said that he had been fifty years in that employ, and that the Oneida lake had 

 receded half a mile within his memory. William Colbreath, one of the first settlers at 

 Rome, in digging a well found a large tree at the depth of twelve feet. This great lake 

 breaking down in the first place the barriers which opposed the progress of its waters to 

 the east, and then gradually receding to the west, is a subject well deserving of minute 

 investigation. 



It is supposed that the Hudson river opened a new route for itself by prostrating the 

 mountains at the Highlands, and that its former course lay through one of the valleys to 

 the west. 



Among similar instances which miglt be adduced, as having occurred in the old world, 

 I might refer to the Caspian Sea and Lake Aral, which were supposed to have been 



