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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



terminated at the Whittlesey level; eastward from this district 

 the glacial drainage is down to the Warren level. It seems certain 

 that the Whittlesey waters lay against the ice front while the 

 latter receded from State Line to Marilla, a distance of 75 miles. 

 The lake phenomena correlating with the ice front oscillation oh 

 the "Thumb" of Michigan should be found, if found at all, in the 

 30 miles of shore line between Girard, Pa. and State Line. 



Theoretically it would seem improbable that a great stretch of 

 glacier front, given great lobations by the land depressions, and 

 with different conditions of latitude, climate, snow supply, direction 

 and rate of flow and push or impulse should oscillate synchro- 

 nously. There is evidence , which will be published in a later writing, 

 that as between the Batavia and the Syracuse districts the motion 

 of the ice front was a seesawing. 



It is recognized that glacial and glacial lake history will be 

 found increasingly complex as facts multiply and it is granted 

 that some oscillation of the ice front was likely, but in the New 

 York portion of the Erie basin the facts thus far favor the simpler 

 history as outlined above. The records of ice border drainage 

 and glacial lakes east of the Erie basin, the description of which 

 does not belong in this discussion, seem to prove that no Huron- 

 Erie waters earlier and higher than the lower Warren ever extended 

 east of Crittenden. 



Work of the subsiding waters: Lake Dana beaches 



The general relation of the waters has already been given [p. 43],. 

 and some discussion of the phenomena. We will now briefly 

 describe the features in order from west to east. 



The time required for the lowering of the water surface from the 

 Hamburg beach down to the Erie level, 235 feet, must be estimated 

 in centuries if not in thousands of years, and we might expect to 

 find some continuous beaches at intermediate levels. Although 

 all the slopes are subdued and evidently subjected to water erosion 

 and silting up of low places yet the phenomena as a whole are not 

 striking. A few strong bars are found at different levels but no 

 continuous shoreline. 



Northwest of Westfield on the edge of the Chautauqua creek 

 delta, at Barcelona, is a good bar on the cliff close to the Erie shore. 

 Its height above the lake is 35 feet, making its altitude 607 feet. 



At the north edge of the city of Dunkirk are a good bar on the 

 lake cliff and a series of sand deposits which have been excavated. 

 The bar is 22 feet over Erie, or 594 feet altitude. 



