PLEISTOCENE GEOLOGY OF MOOERS QUADRANGLE 



53 



of beaches. Besides those shown on the map there are scores of 

 narrow swampy strips too small to be mapped. Considerable 

 tracts belong to the group of wet woods rather than swamps. 

 About 1 mile east of Wood Falls there is a depression occupied by 

 a dense growth of tamarack with the usual swamp conditions. 

 Shallow swamp growths margin many of the streams in northern 

 Altona and Mooers; particularly are these swamps noticeable at 

 the elevation of 500 feet. Abandoned stream beds also give rise to 

 small narrow swamps, as in the example parallel to the Rutland 

 Railroad tracks northeast of Mooers Forks. 



Most of the larger swamps in the low grounds appear to occupy 

 the broader depressions in the old sea bottom, where the slopes are 

 too gentle for the existing streams effectively to drain the area. 

 Whether or not the tilting of the district in postglacial times has 

 had any effect on the formation of swamps, does not appear from 

 an examination of their development in relation to north and 

 south flowing streams. The fact that the smaller swamps are 

 mainly shallow, and that they exhibit the habit of climbing the 

 slopes of stream bottoms, offsets perhaps the effects of a displace- 

 ment of the surface. It should be noted however that a large 

 swamp tract appears along the course of the Big Chazy river on 

 the eastern border of the area mapped just where the river turns 

 to a northward course. The valley is broad and open here and 

 becomes narrower near Perry Mills. 



Peat. The swamps on this eastern margin in the town of Chain- 

 plain, including a large one on the adjacent Rouse Point map to 

 the eastward, are said to be underlain by extensive peat deposits. 



SUMMARY OF PLEISTOCENE HISTORY OF THE AREA 



Definite traces of glaciation anterior to the latest or Wiscon- 

 sin epoch have not been recognized. Earlier glacial deposits 

 might well have been scoured away in a region which received 

 the brunt of ice action as the Wisconsin ice sheet pressed on 

 and rose over the northern slope of the Adirondacks. A small 

 deposit of very fine grayish sandy clays, with whiter bands of a 

 more silicious character in the north bank of the Big Chazy, 

 about 1 mile above Mooers Forks and now overlain by boulder 

 clay is the only as yet discovered deposit intermediate in age 



