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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



or closed by moraine or drumlin drift that they could not have 

 carried a large volume of water, yet may be as low as the passes 

 which are marked as glacial channels. An example is seen north- 

 east of Newark. The Ganargua creek deserts the channel with 

 direct or easterly course and turns north 3 miles in an open valley 

 of channel form, then after about 5 miles of winding course to the 

 southeast, partly in narrow cuts, returns to the old glacial channel 

 at Lyons. It is evident, both from the directions of the stream 

 and the valley constrictions, that the course of the Ganargua was 

 not followed by any large volume of the latest glacial drainage. 

 Yet the study of these low passes and others eastward to Syracuse 

 [pi. 4] suggests that their borders are usually too definite and direct 

 and the entire form too channellike to represent merely the acci- 

 dental, irregular, low areas among the drumlins. They seem to 

 have been originated by stream work and partially obstructed by 

 the later ice work. With this interpretation they argue for a com- 

 plicated glacial history of the region and at least more than one 

 epoch of heavy drainage. This point has been discussed in a former 

 writing [see title 39, p. 427]. 



The Fairport channel lies so far north of and so far beneath the 

 Victor channel that it suggests a distinctly different epoch of the 

 drainage. We find that between the two series of drainage courses 

 there are no intermediate channels, although the difference in alti- 

 tude is 120 to 140 feet. In the higher series we find a succession of 

 stream cuttings within a fall of perhaps only one or two score feet. 

 A continuous recession and falling of the barrier implies a contin- 

 uous lowering of the stream work. It seems conclusive that the 

 lower channels, the Fairport series, were not cut by drainage of the 

 same episode, or during one continuous recession of the ice front, as 

 the higher or Victor series. It is also evident that the Fairport 

 channel was made later and not earlier than the Victor channel, as 

 it has not been overridden by the glacier since its occupation by a 

 great river. 



It is certain that the Victor-Phelps channel series represents 

 drainage past the ice border long before Lake Warren came into 

 central New York. It seems probable that the Fairport-Lyons 

 series is post- Warren and post-Dana in time. If this is a correct 

 interpretation it locates approximately the position of the ice 

 front at this stage of the hypo- Warren (or hyper-Iroquois) time, 

 because the directness of the drainage and its relations to the low 

 passes on the north show that it lay near the ice edge. 



