GLACIAL WATERS IN CENTRAL NEW YORK 



9 



tory must be noted here. In former writings it was supposed that 

 immediately subsequent to the Batavia outflow the Warren waters 

 invaded the region, from the west, and that the falling Warren, or 

 hypo- Warren waters carved the channels under discussion. In 

 this view the Leroy-Syracuse channels were the latest or closing 

 phenomena of the glacial waters in the region. On the contrary it 

 now appears, with the larger range of facts available, that these 

 channels antedated the Warren waters. The Warren planes, 880 

 feet, and Dana (hypo- Warren) phenomena, 700 feet, are found far 

 northward of the channels [see pi. 2, 3]. The channels were cer- 

 tainly formed at the receding ice border Equally certain it is that 

 the Warren phenomena north of Victor and Fishers, and the Dana 

 cliffs and spits near Bergen and Elba have never been touched by 

 an ice sheet. The only possible conclusion seems to be that the 

 Warren invasion occurred after the low channels were cut at Leroy, 

 Rush, Victor, Clifton Springs, Phelps and the Split Rock district. 

 The very pronounced channel farther north, extending from Fair- 

 port to Lyons and eastward, and correlating with the low passages 

 at Weedsport, Jordan, Memphis and Syracuse may have been post- 

 Warren. 



The present conception of the lake history negatives the idea of 

 a steady, continuous, single recession of the ice front in central- 

 western New York and requires instead some oscillation of the ice 

 front and a seesawing as between the meridians of Batavia and 

 Syracuse. The low channels through the city of Syracuse must have 

 been open in order to allow the river flow through Victor-Phelps at 

 500 feet; and the Warren waters were then excluded by the ice 

 barrier lying against the high ground north of Batavia. On the 

 other hand the existence of Lake Warren in central New York, the 

 proofs of which are positive, requires a recession of the ice north of 

 Batavia and the readvance and blocking of the Syracuse channels 

 up to at least 890 feet. 



On the Split Rock meridian there is a singular complication of 

 the channel phenomena, described on page 23, which also requires 

 oscillation of the ice barrier on that line. 



To return to the general description of the channel features : On 

 any meridian the channels lie in series, falling northward, as 

 required on the theory of a receding barrier. This feature may be 

 clearly seen on the meridians of Mumford and Rush, plate 2 ; Shorts- 

 ville and Clifton Springs, plate 3 ; and very strikingly at Split Rock 

 and Jamesville, plate 4. This fact is sufficient proof that these 



