REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I904 



19 



near West Chazy, the main features of which have been de- 

 scribed and illustrated in a report now in press. Subsequently a 

 reconnaissance was made of certain points on the Vermont side 

 of Lake Champlain which led Professor Woodworth to Richford 

 and over the international boundary to Abbot's Corners, Que- 

 bec, thence southward to Milton and the basin of the Winooski 

 river lying east of the Green mountains. It was ascertained that 

 a glacial lake at one time occupied this basin, as probably one 

 also did that of the Lamoille river in a similar geographic rela- 

 tion to the retreating ice sheet of the Wisconsin epoch. The oc- 

 currence of glacial clays in the Winooski valley at higher levels 

 than they are found in the Champlain valley appears entirely 

 explicable in the view that this lake was in existence while the 

 ice in the Champlain valley blocked the discharge through the 

 Winooski gap in the Green mountains, thus forcing the lake to 

 drain eastward across the head-water region of the Winooski into 

 the Connecticut river. As soon as the ice depassed the Winooski 

 gorge the lake drained into the glacial predecessor of Lake 

 Champlain and fell to its level. A similar history must have at- 

 tended the drainage of the Lamoille basin. The high level of the 

 lake clays in the Winooski basin therefore does not demand the 

 existence of a contemporaneous lake in the Champlain valley at 

 so high a level. The reconnaissance served also to make it 

 probable that the glacial lakes in the Champlain valley did not 

 drain eastward at any time through the gaps in the Green moun- 

 tains into the Connecticut. 



Postglacial faults. Later in the season Professor Woodworth 

 took up the investigation of the postglacial faults in the slate 

 region east of the Hudson in order to determine the role of these 

 displacements in the general northward rise of the country dur- 

 ing and since the disappearance of the ice. It will appear in his 

 report that these recent geologic fractures are found at intervals 

 from Troy southward to the vicinity of Hyde Park and from 

 the Hudson river to the base of the Taconic range, and that they 

 indicate an uplift of the country on the east in a manner to sug- 

 gest that these ancient mountain ranges on the eastern border 

 of the State are still growing. 



Glacial and postglacial drainage in western New York. Prof. 

 H. L. Fairchild has studied the drainage features of the glacial 

 lakes in western and central New York with reference to the 

 altitude and direction of overflow of the glacial waters. These 



