HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YOEK. 



57 



of Canisteo, where it enters the river a little below the 

 mouth of Bennett's Creek. Throughout the course of this 

 creek the country is elevated into high hills, with precipi- 

 tous valleys, presenting features broken, bold, picturesque. 



Bennett's Creek rises in the town of West Union, at 

 an elevation of eight hundred feet above the Canisteo 

 River. Here the hills are about two thousand five hundred 

 feet above tide-water. The highest source of Bennett's 

 Creek is a little south of the residence of J. McNeil ; 

 thence it runs north past Rexville, " Rough-and-ready," 

 Greenw^ood, Canisteo, where it enters the Canisteo River in 

 a broad and beautiful delta of flat lands. This creek ex- 

 poses to view some of the grits from which have been 

 quarried grindstones. Its upper source is in a fine lumber 

 district ; its valley somewhat contracted by the approach of 

 hills, through which are precipitated numerous small, roar- 

 ing, rattling runs of water, whose beds are paved with 

 shale, broken stone, and gravel. 



PuRDY Creek is a principal tributary of Bennett's 

 Creek. It rises in the southwest corner of the town of 

 Hartsville, and runs through a narrow valley northeasterly 

 to Bennett's Creek, near the residence of H. Eason. The 

 bed of this creek is covered with the debris of rock and 

 shale, broken and torn asunder by the precipitous waters. 



Crosby Creek rises in Allegany County, and runs 

 through the northwest corner of Hartsville into Hornells- 

 ville, and enters the Canisteo at the village of Hornellsville. 



The Canaseraga rises in the south part of the town 

 of Dansville, and runs north into Dansville, in Livingston 

 County ; thence to the Genesee River. 



Neil's Creek rises in the high valley of Loon Lake, 

 out of Mud Lake, and runs south into Howard ; thence 

 east and north into the Conhocton. 



Five-Mile Creek, Ten-Mile Creek, and Twelve- 

 Mile Creek severally rise in the north part of Pratts- 

 burgh, and run southwesterly into the Conhocton ; Five-Mile 

 Creek at Kanona, Ten-Mile at Wallace's Mills, and Twelve- 

 Mile at Wallace's Station. These several creeks form the 

 principal valleys of the towns of Wheeler and Prattsburgh. 



Cold Spring Creek rises partly in Bath and Wheeler, 

 forms quite a stream at the old Henry A. Townsend place, 

 and thence runs through Pleasant Valley to Lake Keuka, 

 at Hammondsport. (See History of Urbana.) 



Mud Creek rises from Mud Lake, and runs south- 

 easterly through Bradford and the eastern part of Bath to 

 the Conhocton at Savona. At the outlet of Mud Lake, 

 Frederick Bartles located himself in 1793, and built a 

 flouring- and saw-mill, making the place quite noted, and 

 prospectively/ quite a large town. (See History of Brad- 

 ford.) 



GEOLOGY. 



The surface rocks of the county of Steuben are composed 

 of the Chemung group of sandstones and shales to the 

 depth of nearly one thousand feet. The sandstones are 

 most commonly fine-grained, the particles being often ce- 

 mented by shale, the two being intermixed with each other. 

 It is to this cause, from the disintegrating nature of the 

 shale, ihat so much of the sandstone of Steuben County is 

 of a perishable nature. 



The sandstones range in layers from an inch to a foot in 

 8 



thickness. In some localities they form suitable layers for 

 flagging. In one locality, a quarry suitable for grindstones 

 has been opened and worked. The shale in some places 

 assumes a slaty structure, sometimes of a blue color, with 

 the same tendency to decomposition which characterizes the 

 whole mass. In some places they form concretions, parallel 

 with their layers, of carbonate of lime or of manganese, of 

 sizes from an inch to several yards in length. They are 

 sometimes colored with bitumen and carbonate of iron. 



The rocks of Steuben County pass immediately under 

 the coal formations of Pennsylvania. The dip or inclina- 

 tion is constantly to the south, there being no anticlinal 

 line other than the slightly elevated one which has given 

 rise to the northern and southern waters. This dipping of 

 the rocks to the south, though it diminishes the geographical 

 height of the coal series, correspondingly increases their 

 thickness. Some of the hills in the southern part of Steuben 

 County are capped with conglomerate, showing masses of 

 red sandstone, together with fossils which border the coal 

 series ; but the strata of rocks dipping to the south at 

 Painted Post one hundred and thirty feet to the mile, at 

 Chimney Narrows one hundred feet, and five miles farther 

 south one hundred and ninety-eight feet, the strata of rock 

 peculiar to Steuben County would pass six thousand feet 

 below the coal beds of Pennsylvania. 



The rocks of this county, consisting of shale and sand- 

 stone of a greenish color, are evidently not of igneous 

 origin. They abound in marine organic remains of shells 

 and zoophites, showing the presence of the sea, and not of 

 land favorable for plants the origin of coal, — the coal se- 

 ries exhibiting vegetable, not marine remains. The con- 

 glomerate or pebble rock occurs in this county only as a 

 terminal rock, and in very partial masses. It diminishes 

 with the coal as you go north. From all of which it is 

 evident that these rocks pass under the coal series, and form 

 the support of their mass. 



The rocks of the county exhibiting marine organic re- 

 mains were at some period submerged by the waters of the 

 ocean. It has been suggested that an inland sea covered 

 all the western portion of the State, and observations may 

 tend to support the theory. The lake ridge of Ontario 

 shows marks of shores of water, which at various periods 

 stood from an elevation of seven hundred and sixty-two 

 feet to the present level of the lake. Similar indications 

 of ancient shores may be traced at the head of Seneca 

 Lake. When the waters stood at the highest mark indicated, 

 the area of the inland sea must have been limited by the 

 Highlands and New England range on the east ; the shores 

 of Lake Superior on the north ; the Alleghanies on the 

 south ; and the head-waters of the Mississippi on the west. 

 The outlet of this sea would be by the St. Lawrence, the 

 Hudson, the Connecticut, ^nd the Susquehanna. 



The deposition of drift which occurred at that time may 

 be traced down the valleys of these rivers in the large number 

 of bowlders deposited. 



The indications of diluvial action are everywhere perceived 

 in the accumulation of gravel, sand, pebbles, and bowlders 

 strewed over the surface. Diluvial hills are found in various 

 localities. The level portions of Western New York are 

 of diluvial origin, the surface being strewed with bowlders 



