Nt). 200.] 
315 
€oarse gravel, according to the state and direction of the Ivinds; it is 
sometimes entirely swept away by the excited waves of the lake. 
Valleys. 
In Wayne county, the Erie canal is carried along the valley of the 
Clyde, from both sides of which thfe country takes a very gradual rise. 
Canandaigua, Crooked, Seneca, and Cayuga lakes discharge their waters 
northwardly into the stream which traverses this valley. The stream is 
known firstly as Mud creek, until joined by the Canandaigua outlet^ 
when it becomes Clyde river, and so continues eastward as lar as Mon- 
tezuma, where it receives through the Seneca outlet the waters of Crook- 
ed, Seneca, and Cayuga lakeSj and then continuing east through Cayu- 
ga into Onondaga, joins the outlet of Oneida lake, with which it forms 
the Oswego river. The latter finally empties all the waters of the 
Clyde and Oneida valleys, including fifteen lakes, into Lake Ontario. 
It was suggested to me by Col. Elias Cook of Sodus Point, the pre- 
sent chief engineer on the Sodus canal, that at a former period, and 
perhaps previously to the formation of the Cayuga marshes, the Seneca 
river discharged a part or the whole of its waters northwardly through 
the towns of Butler and Wolcott in Wayne county, along the Wolcott 
creek* into Port bay on Lake Ontario. An examination of the country 
renders this opinion very probable. The marsh extends past Crusoe lake, 
which is immediately north of the island of the same name, into the 
town of Butler, to within a short distance of Wolcott creek. Also, 
by the surveys of Col. Cook, it appears that the rock in Wolcott creek 
at Marble's quarry, (lot 165 in Butler,) is only one foot above the level 
of the Montezuma marshes. It appears also from other surveys which 
we have had an opportunity of consulting, that from the north part of 
Crusoe lake in Savannah, to Marble's in Butler, a cutting to four feet 
below the water at Crusoe's bridge, will average fifteen feet. This is a 
distance of about six miles, and the excavations would be through sand 
and gravel. The extensive water- worn surface of rock in the creek at 
Marble's quarry, indicates the passage of a much larger body of water 
than is now transmitted through this channel. At the village of Wol- 
cott, we also notice a large gorge or gulf, produced by the current of a 
great body of water along the course of the present stream. The creek 
at present falls over the eastern part of this gulf, and upon no occasion 
of freshet in the present stream, does the water extend to the other side 
of the gulf; at the bottom of which we notice the ruins of an old fur- 
* Its proper name is Mill creek. 
