26 







NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



In this section a series of vigorous creeks flow to the northwest 

 in parallel courses: Cazenovia creek at East Aurora, Buffalo creek 

 at Wales and Elma, Little Buffalo creek at Marilla and Cayuga 

 creek at Cowlesville. Standing waters were held by the ice barrier 

 in each of these valleys and the inflowing streams dropped their 

 detritus at varying levels, the larger delta plains ranging from 

 somewhat above the Whittlesey level, or at about 920 feet, down 

 below the Warren level, or to about 820 feet. (The Whittlesey 

 shore at Elma Center station is 905 and the lower Warren 835 feet.) 



There is an important difference between this section and those 

 west of Hamburg. Here we do not find a steep rock slope from 

 which the morainal drift has been swept, but we find instead a 

 broad frontal moraine of usually sharp relief and dissected by num- 

 erous streams of the glacial drainage. On the meridian of Williston 

 the moraine has a breadth of about 8 miles, from Wales Center to 

 West Alden, and all the central part for a width of 5 miles is cut 

 by conspicuous channels which carried the ponded waters westward 

 from one valley to the next. The altitude of these stream channels 

 declines, of course, along any meridian from south to north suc- 

 cessively, although the difference between two successive cuts 

 may not exceed 10 or 20 feet. The number and closeness of the 

 channels are well seen on the four north and south roads from 

 Marilla eastward. 



Our interpretation of the moraines in this section is somewhat 

 different from that given by Leverett [Monograph XLI, pi. XXV, 

 p. 673-84]. He separates the moraines by broad belts of drainage 

 into the Gowanda, Hamburg and Marilla moraines. The writer 

 does not find such important concentration of the old drainage, 

 but that on the contrary the channels are so numerous and widely 

 distributed that the moraine can not justly be divided. For its 

 entire width from East Aurora and Wales Center north to the War- 

 ren shore the moraine is essentially a unit. 



Southeast of East Aurora nearly • 3 miles are two scourways 

 lying against morainal knolls at altitude of about 11 40 to 11 80 

 feet. Other westward outlets of the waters held in the Buffalo 

 creek valley over Wales should occur at lower levels. 



East Aurora lies on a broad delta filling built near the Whittlesey 

 level. The head of the plain east of the village is about 925 feet. 

 The Pennsylvania Railroad station is given as 921 feet. Down- 

 stream, or westward, the plain declines to under 900 feet. On the 

 north of the village, between the delta plain and the south edge 

 of the Hamburg moraine, is a channel some 60 rods wide with the 



