58 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



of foreign parentage. Many of them consist of granite 

 and gneiss, some of sandstone from below, others of lime- 

 stone from above. Many of the rocks bear evidences of 

 the wearing action of water, running and carrying materials 

 which wore away, and in some instances polished, the sur- 

 face of the rocks. In some places the abrupt offsets from 

 one strata to another have been worn down to a gradual 

 slope. The agency of running water in producing our di- 

 luvial deposits is very obvious ; and the formation of these 

 deposits shows not only the action of running water in one 

 direction, but also oP eddies and counter-currents. In 

 many places we find the coarser deposits on the south side 



and Cohocton they are chiefly derived from primary rocks, 

 some of the crystalline formation, others of granite, gneiss, 

 and feldspar combined. On the farm of Albert Seeley, in 

 the town of Pulteney, is a large bowlder of this descrip- 

 tion, the parent bed of which cannot be nearer than the 

 primitive formations of the north of this continent* Granite 

 is found scattered through almost all the northern towns of 

 the county, and in the southern it is mingled with masses 

 of conglomerate. In some instances, as in Urbana, Wayne, 

 Wheeler, and Bath, large blocks are accompanied by rolled 

 pebbles of greenstone, sandstone, sienite, and limestone. 

 In the valleys of the Conhocton, Canisteo, Five- and Twelve- 



PENCIL SKETCH OF THE RAVINE AT HAMMONDSPORT, EXPOSING TO VIEW 300 FEET OF SHALE AND SANDSTONE. 



of the hills, and their ascent more abrupt. We find also 

 granite bowlders in the same deposit with those of limestone, 

 many of them worn and rounded as by the whirl of counter- 

 currents. And many of our hills and valleys bear evidence 

 of such eddies and currents of water in their formation. 



We notice two kinds of materials that have been carried 

 and deposited by the agency of currents of water : 



1. Bowlders, or large blocks of stone, rounded, and 

 scattered over the surface or imbedded in clay. 



2. Beds of sand, clay, and gravel, composed of rounded 

 fragments of diff'erent sizes. 



The bowlder deposits are numerous, and scattered gener- 

 ally throughout the county. In Prattsburgh, Pulteney, 



Mile Creeks, limestone is found as a drift rock in rounded 

 pebbles of different sizes. There is not any uniformity in 

 the line of deposit of these bowlders, nor can any course 

 be traced with distinctness. It is uncertain whether they 

 were grounded from ice deposits or by glacial action. 



The ridges of gravel, sand, and clay appear to have been 

 formed by similar action of water: they seem to be of simi- 

 lar character, and from the same localities as the larger 

 bowlders. There is scarcely any uniformity of drift over a 

 given space in any one town. In some places it assumes 

 the form of fine sand, in others of coarse gravel, and in 

 others of loam in mass, or mingled with sand and gravel ; 

 in other places the sand, gravel and loam, and clay, lie-in 



