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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the slope of the surface. Though it has a steep gradient, it has 

 not occupied its present course sufficiently long to have chan- 

 neled its valley very deeply, specially as the rocks of its bed 

 are mostly very resistant, and the stream itself above Mooers 

 Forks is of no great size. The sharp turn to the east at the 

 forks is due to a glacial moraine across its course which crowds 

 the North branch into the main stream and nearly does the same 

 thing to the English river. 



As is the case with all young streams, (that is, streams which 

 have not been flowing in their present channels sufficiently long 

 to have cut them down to grade, and which are therefore actively 

 engaged in deepening them) the courses of the streams on the 

 sheet consist of a series of slack water reaches interrupted by 

 waterfalls and rapids, the latter marking "the position of beds 

 which specially resist erosion, followed down stream by those of 

 less resistance, so that the slope at the junction of the two is 

 accentuated by the more rapid cutting away of the later beds. 

 The slack water reaches above are produced by the cutting away 

 of the less resistant rocks above down to the level of the re- 

 sistant bed at the brink of the fall. As the various layers of 

 sandstone over which the streams flow do not vary excessively 

 in resistance, these features are not as pronounced as they would 

 be, were the variation greater and the different beds thicker. In- 

 stead of high falls and long reaches, the falls are frequent and 

 of no great magnitude. 



The irregularity of surface of the plain is due in large part to 

 stream erosion, but also in considerable part to displacement. 

 The drop from the high plain to the Champlain valley plain is 

 also along a line of displacement. The surface has been much 

 modified by glacial action, and is less diversified and less 

 thoroughly drained than before the glacial period. 



The larger part of the area of the sheet was originally densely 

 forested with white pine on the sandy flats and with spruce and 

 hard wood elsewhere. The pine was long since cut away, and 

 the spruce and hard wood in large part lumbered. Some stilj 

 remains which will likely go the way of the rest within the next 



