GLACIAL WATERS IN THE LAKE ERIE BASIN 



79 



If such canting had been in rapid progress during the existence of 

 the lakes the beaches should draw apart toward the northeast, or 

 in other words the vertical spacing between the earlier and later 

 beaches would increase to the northward. As there is an absence 

 of apparent increase in the spacing the only conclusion is that the 

 deformation of the region, or at least the tilting, has mostly occurred 

 since the extinction of the lakes. 



DELTAS AND LAKE PLAINS 



These are features which mark the junction of stream and lake, 

 the product of the reaction of the drainage and the standing waters. 

 They are not so conspicuous locally as the beaches, but more 

 widespread, and of great geographic and economic importance. 

 The larger number of the villages of the district under description 

 have had their locations determined by these detrital plains. Along 

 the slopes nearer Lake Erie these gravel plains fronting the beaches 

 are the favored ground for the grape industry which characterizes 

 this part of the State. In the maps the deltas are not fully shown, 

 because the determination of their limits would require careful 

 survey and consume more time than was available. 



Deltas of glacial drainage 



It was inevitable that all drainage past the ice front should event- 

 ually reach standing water and deposit its burden of detritus. This 

 fact explains the origin of a great number of areas of sand and 

 gravel along the shore of the glacial lakes, some of them being of 

 great extent. We will briefly note the more important of these 

 deltas in order from west to east, or in the order of their formation. 

 As far east as Hamburg or East Aurora the deltas of this class are 

 related only to the Whittlesey waters, while from Marilla eastward 

 they correlate only with the Warren waters. 



The lake bars or ridges of sand and gravel which may or may not 

 carry "Ridge roads" will be stronger and more developed every 

 way in the localities where detritus from drainage was concentrated. 

 From State Line to Westfield there was no very heavy accumula- 

 tion of delta material, the largest being in the region of Forsyth, 

 by the latest streams past the ice front from the eastward. All 

 the earlier drainage past the ice escaped on the landward side of 

 the Escarpment moraine and helped to build the delta plain west 

 of State Line. 



Westfield. Some part of the material forming the detrital plain 

 on which the village stands must have been contributed by the 

 drainage which cut the channels to the east and northeast. 



