GLACIAL WATERS IN THE LAKE ERIE BASIN 



43 



Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad at 787 feet) to 905 or 910 

 feet near Marilla. 



The detailed description of this shore line will follow on later 

 pages. 



Lake Whittlesey came to its extinction by the recession of the ice 

 front on the "Thumb" of Michigan which finally allowed the waters 

 to fall to the level of, and to blend with, Lake Saginaw, the extended 

 waters being called Lake Warren. 



Lake Warren 



This name is applied to the wide extended glacial waters that in 

 the Huron-Erie-Ontario basin succeeded Lake Whittlesey, with its 

 surface about 45 feet lower. While the ice margin was lying south 

 of Alden, N. Y:, its western continuation on the "Thumb" of Michi- 

 gan receded from its position facing the Ubley channel, and the Whit- 

 tlesey waters found lower escape and were finally blended with Lake 

 Saginaw. Lake Warren was, therefore, only the far-extended 

 Lake Saginaw, with outlet by the Grand River valley into the glacial 

 Lake Chicago near Grand Rapids. 



The Warren waters found their way eastward past the slowly 

 receding ice front into central New York, and the great lake came 

 to its extinction by the opening of new and lower outlets eastward to 

 the Mohawk-Hudson in the region of Syracuse. The map in the 

 2 2d annual Report of the State Geologist, plate 1, shows the full 

 extent of the Warren waters in New York. They formed onlv a 

 narrow belt of open water south of the glacier margin, with 

 numerous prolongations up the valleys of the Finger Lakes. 



Unlike the Whittlesey shore, which is a unit and definite, the 

 Warren shore phenomena about the Erie basin are complex, includ- 

 ing usually a series of bars, ranging from 40 or 45 feet down to 70 

 feet below the Whittlesey. This multiplicity of the sand and gravel 

 ridges has been regarded as the product of distinct levels of the 

 lake waters, and in the writings of Leverett and Taylor the upper 

 bars have been called Arkona, and the lower ones Forest (named by 

 Spencer after a town in Ontario, Can.). The present writer has a 

 different view as to the origin of the shore features, but the relation- 

 ship and genesis of these beaches will be discussed later, after the 

 detailed description. 



Lake Dana 



Lake Warren ended by the opening of channels of escape east- 

 ward to the Mohawk-Hudson. The falling waters with easterly 

 outflow might be distinguished as sub-Warren or hypo-Warren, 



