Bishop — Geology of Erie County. 



323 



Quaternary Geology. 



Wherever limestones are freshly uncovered in this region, their surface 

 is found to be polished by glacial action, the striae extending from northeast 

 to southw est. Excellent illustrations may be seen at Fogelsonger's quarry at 

 Williamsville, in the Forest Lawn cemetery at Buffalo and at the Lehigh coal 

 shed near Cheektowaga. At the last named place several acres were stripped 

 of drift to expose the rock, which was used as the floor of the structure. The 

 surface was slightly undulating, well polished, with grooves rarely exceeding- 

 half an inch in depth. One set of striae was noticed crossing the others, but 

 it was of limited extent and evidently of local origin. The accompanying 

 photograph, taken a^; the sojthern end of the shed, gives a fair idea of the 

 glaciation here. 



Up to the base of the Hamilton group the bed-rock is covered with clays, 

 varying from a few inches to sixty feet in depth. The lower stratum is a 

 blue clay filled with smoothed and striated bowlders. Above that is a red 

 clay, seldom containing stones larger than a man's fist, and at the surface is a 

 thin deposit of muck alluvium or stratified gravel. 



A well on the farm of William P. Carr, near the lower end of Grand 

 Island, shows the general succession of strata, as follows : 



Loam 6 feet. 



Red clay 20 " 



Bowlder clay 14 " 



A copious flow of water was struck at forty feet. The top of the well is 

 ten to twelve feet higher than the surface of the river, which is here twenty- 

 two feet deep. Another well, a mile and a half farther south, passed through 

 similar strata. At Sour Spring grove, on Grand Island, opposite Tonawanda, 

 the drift is sixty feet deep and in Tonawanda, village fifty feet deep, as show n 

 by boring in both places. At Getzville, it ranges from twelve to sixty-nine 

 feet, the latter depth being found near a creek. At Rapids, a water w ell 

 forty feet deep did not reach bed-rock. Along Buffalo creek, within the city 

 of Buffalo, the superficial deposit is about fifty feet thick. Although the 

 areas outside the river and creek bottoms are more thinly covered, numerous 

 borings and excavations show that the a verage thickness of the drift over the 

 area under consideration is not far from twenty-five feet. 



The surface of the Hamilton and Portage rocks is covered with drift 

 somewhat unevenly distributed but increasing in depth toward the south. 

 The upper rocks of the Portage group from Chaffee to Gowanda appeal- to 



