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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Warren. As there is no evidence of river work on the slopes south 

 of the intake it appears that the initiation of eastward flow, the 

 extinction of Lake Warren, was not in this locality. It is supposed 

 that the Warren waters, standing over this district and creeping 

 past the ice front, found initial outflow across one of the ridges 

 on the east, possibly southwest of Jamesville, but more likely on 

 the steep slope east of Jamesville, or between Fayetteville and 

 Chittenango. Under this view the surface of the falling water was 

 gradually lowered over the region until the river flow was estab- 

 lished in the great channels described above. 



Birth of Niagara falls and Lake Erie 



During the slow fall of the hyper- Iroquois waters and while the 

 lower Syracuse channels were occupied the second time the falls of 

 Niagara came into existence. While the Warren and Dana waters 

 flooded central New York these glacial waters were confluent and 

 identical over both the Erie and Ontario basins, as far as the ice 

 barrier was removed. The separation occurred when the escarpment 

 of Lockport limestone emerged from the subsiding waters, thus 

 compelling the Erian waters to cascade over the cliff and drop into 

 the now distinct Ontarian waters. The initiation of the falls and 

 gorge of Niagara was coincident with the creation of the primitive 

 Lake Erie. 



Dr Gilbert long ago discovered that the first spilling of the Erian 

 waters over the escarpment found at least two points of overflow, 

 one at Lockport and the other at Lewiston, and that the latter 

 did not prevail until a large gulf was cut at Lockport [see title ii, 

 p. 286]. 



It must be understood that the waters lying north of the escarp- 

 ment and restricted to the Ontario basin were not yet Lake Iro- 

 quois but only the sub-Dana or hyper- Iroquois. The crest of the 

 escarpment at the two points of initial overflow has an elevation 

 of about 600 feet. Allowing for eastward uplift the channel pass- 

 ing through. Fairmount and Burnet Park seems to have held the 

 earliest river which carried waters that had fallen over the young 

 Niagaras. 



The hight of the Niagara cataract could increase only as the sur- 

 face of the hyper-Iroquois waters slowly fell. The control of the 

 Niagara base level was therefore exercised by the ice barrier resting 

 against the Syracuse salient, and later resting on the ground east 

 of Rochester. The several terraces found at Queenston and along 



