GLACIAL WATERS IN CENTRAL NEW YORK 



25 



ice-dammed waters hesitated or perhaps oscillated between east 

 and west flow. 



Passing by these equivocal features, we may say that the highest 

 well marked eastward drainage in this district is at or slightly over 

 900 feet. Eastward, between the Onondaga, Butternut and Lime- 

 stone valleys there are higher east-leading channels, to be men- 

 tioned in the next chapter. 



The east and west deformation between Batavia and Syracuse, 

 on practically the same parallel, is small, apparently 25 or 30 feet 

 since Iroquois time. The close correspondence between the lowest 

 passes south of Batavia and the highest at Split Rock is noteworthy, 

 being in each case a little over 900 feet. Theoretically the Split 

 Rock channels should be somewhat lower, and so they were when 

 effective, or before the eastward uplift. 



Three miles north of west of Marcellus is an interesting gravel 

 plain, about a square mile in area, which includes the tract known 

 as Shepard Settlement. It is a glacial delta or outwash by glacial 

 streams from the edge of the glacier into standing water. On the 

 north border the ground falls away steeply and with decidedly 

 morainal surface, showing the ice contact. The altitude of the 

 plain is 940 to 920 feet. The moraine forming the north side of the 

 delta is a continuation of the Auburn moraine on the west, and 

 seems to correlate with a belt of moraine surface which lies along 

 the road south of the Split Rock channels. If this correlation is cor- 

 rect then we have located a considerable stretch of the glacier front 

 at the time immediately preceding the initiation of the eastward 

 flow by the highest Split Rock channels. The Shepard Settlement 

 delta was apparently built in the waters of Lake Hall, and we thus 

 locate the west-flowing waters far east and near the locality of sub- 

 sequent eastward escape. All the relations of the several phenomena 

 point to the history of lake and drainage as outlined above, namely 

 that the lake waters west of the Syracuse region found westward 

 escape at Batavia until the ice front gave way in the Split Rock 

 district and then for a time, perhaps for many years, the central 

 New York waters had double escape, flowing west past Batavia and 

 east past Syracuse, either synchronously or alternately as the ice 

 front slightly yielded or readvanced. 



These waters at the ice front escaping eastward represent a lower 

 level than Lake Hall and the opposite direction of outflow. They 

 require a separate designation and are named Lake Vanuxem 

 [see pi. 37]. 



