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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Further recession of the ice front on the Michigan "Thumb" 

 extinguished Lake Maumee, by opening an escape for the ice-im- 

 prisoned waters at a lower level. It has been supposed that the 

 successor of Maumee was the next lower of the lakes which have 

 left their shore inscriptions in the region, that is, Lake Whittlesey. 

 But Taylor has recently found that the relation of shore lines and 

 moraines indicates that the ice front receded from the Maumee level 

 directly to a level below the Whittlesey and opened free passage for 

 the waters to Lake Saginaw. This level of the waters in the Huron- 

 Erie basin is thought to have persisted for a long time and to have 

 formed the extensive beaches in Michigan and eastward, known 

 as Arkona (named by Spencer). 



At length a readvance of the ice in Michigan closed the Arkona 

 outlet and forced the overflow to a higher level, farther south, on 

 the thumb of Michigan, at Ubley. The beaches correlating with 

 the Ubley outlet have long been known as the Belmore (named by 

 N. H. Winchell from a town in Ohio) and the waters have been 

 named by Taylor Lake Whittlesey. 



The fall of the glacial waters from the Maumee down to the Arkona 

 level with the subsequent rise to the Whittlesey level the writer 

 believes to have occurred while these waters were yet excluded 

 from New York. The facts and argument bearing on the above 

 history will be found on pages 64-75. However, the continued 

 recession of the Erian ice lobe during the life of Lake Whittlesey 

 allowed these waters to push far into New York. In the State of 

 New York we have, therefore, to deal only with Whittlesey and 

 lower waters. 



Lake Whittlesey 



This water body, named by Taylor in 1897, was the successor to 

 Lakes Maumee and Arkona in the Huron-Erie basin. Its outlet 

 was at Ubley on the Michigan "Thumb," in a reentrant angle of the 

 ice front. The overflow was contributed to the glacial lake Sagi- 

 naw, in the valley of that name, which in turn had its outlet across 

 Michigan by the Grand River valley to Lake Chicago. The strong 

 shore line named by Winchell in 1872 the "Belmore," after the 

 town in Ohio, is the beach of this lake. The Whittlesey beach 

 extends into New York with strong development but weakens 

 beyond Gowanda and disappears between East Aurora and Alden 

 near the village of Marilla. 



The Whittlesey shore has suffered deformation in common with all 

 the beaches in the Erie basin, and rises from an altitude of 784 feet 

 above ocean at State Line (taking the elevation of the track of the 



