242 



Report of the State Geologist. 



In the northeastern part, a section five or six miles w ide, parallel to the 

 shore of Oneida lake, is low and flat and, in the town of Cicero, embraces 

 several large swamps. The northern parts of the tow ns of Manlius, Dewitt 

 and Clay lie partly in this tract which, on the eastern borders of the county, 

 extends as far south as the Erie canal, and includes the territory about the 

 foot of Onondaga lake and its outlet. The average altitude is not greater 

 than 890 feet A. T. 



In the town of Lysander the land is gently undulating in the eastern 

 part, but higher in the western part where the rounded drift hills sometimes 

 rise 100 to 150 feet above the level of Cross lake and the Seneca river. The 

 northern part of the town of Van Buren is rolling, the sides of the hills fre- 

 quently showing the soft red and green shales of which they are composed. 



The Erie canal crosses the county a little north of the center, at an 

 elevation of 401 to 409 feet A. T. The territory lying north of the canal is 

 generally flat or gently undulating. The soft Clinton, Niagara and Salina 

 shales that here constitute the bed rock, offer little resistance to denuding or 

 disintegrating forces, and are buried under drift or, when exposed, smoothly 

 rounded over. 



The southern part of Van Buren and the northern parts of Elbridge and 

 Camillus are generally flat and low. The broad swampy intervales of Nine 

 Mile creek, Carpenter's brook and other streams, extend through the higher 

 and rougher southern parts of Camillus and Elbridge to the line of the 

 Auburn branch of the New York Central railroad. 



South of this lower and comparatively level part of the county, a succes- 

 sion of rugged ledges and vertical walls of limestone, constituting the Helderberg 

 escarpment, stretches across the county, on a very irregular, but nearly east 

 and west line. This escarpment is the upturned edge of the limestones of the 

 Salina, Low er Helderberg and Corniferous groups, lying upon each other to 

 the thickness of 4(H) to 500 feet. It causes an abrupt elevation of the surface 

 to the height of 800 to 850 feet A. T. From the top of the escarpment to 

 the south line of the county the average elevation gradually increases to 1,500 

 or 1,600 feet A. T., and the extreme height reaches 2,020 feet A. T., at the top 

 of South mountain, in the town of Fabius, and 1,968 feet, at Ripley hill in 

 Spafford. This high land in the southern tier of tow ns forms the summit 

 ridge or watershed between the drainage areas of lake Ontario and the Sus- 

 quehanna river. 



The waters of Limestone creek, Butternut creek, Onondaga creek, Spaf- 

 ford creek and Skaneateles lake How toward the north and reach the sea by 



