New York State Museum 



GEOLOGY OF RAND HILL AND VICINITY 

 CLINTON CO. 



Geography 



The Moo-ere topographic sheet covers that part of Clinton 

 county between longitude 73° 30' and 73° 45' and between 

 latitude 44° 45' and the Canadian line. It comprises a consider- 

 able part of Altona and Mooers, as well as portions of Beekman- 

 town, Champlain, Chazy and Dannemora townships. The in- 

 cluded area contains approximately 218 square miles. The larger 

 portion of this area constitutes a part of the great plain which 

 slopes from the northern foothills of the Adirondacks to the St 

 Lawrence river. That part of this plain which lies in Clinton 

 county slopes to the northeast, that in Franklin and St Lawrence 

 counties to the northwest, away from a north and south axi* of 

 elevation along the west edge of Clinton county. 



Along the eastern border of the sheet there is a rapid drop, 

 step-fashion, from the level of this plain to that of the much 

 lower plain of the Champlain valley. As the former slopes con- 

 siderably, the latter but slightly, toward the north, the distinc- 

 tion between the two plains fades out in the northeastern corner 

 ot the sheet. 



In Dannemora and Beekmantown the foothill belt of the 

 Adirondacks rises above the level of the plain, a series of ridges 

 and valleys in which the hilltops reach all sorts of altitudes and 

 the ridges trend in various directions, and which sinks beneath, 

 or is overlapped by the rocks of the high plain. 



In a broad view then, the surface is a plain sloping from an 

 altitude of 1G00 feet in the southwest to only 200 feet in the 

 northeast corner of the sheet, or about 70 feet to< the mile. Go- 

 ing to the eastward from the southern limits of the map, the 

 drop to the same level is much more abrupt. The main stream 

 on the sheet, the Big Chazy river, which rises in Chazy lake 

 not far beyond the limits of the sheet, follows in a general way 



