452 Lake Seneca. 
Scayace, and subsequently by the St. Lawrence, into the Atlantic. 
The elevation of the lake is about 431 feet above tide water at 
Albany, and the elevation of the valley of its inlet at its head, 
440 feet higher. Through this valley, at some period it is pro- 
bable the waters of the Chemung discharged themselves into the 
lake; vegetable remains have been found buried at a depth below 
the surface of the valley. There is a still farther rise south- 
wardly from the Chemung, up one of its tributaries, the Tioga, 
of about 300 feet to Blossburg, and thence onward in the same 
direction 16 miles to Laurel mountain, in the county of Lycom- 
ing, Penn., where the barometer gives the height of the summit 
2,800 feet above tide water. From this point the waters flow in 
opposite directions, viz : north and south to supply the same stream, 
the Susquehanna. Those flowing north to perform an immense 
circuit through the Chemung and north branch of the Susque- 
hanna, to meet at Northumberland, after a passage of 300 miles, 
the waters which the same shower supplied. By observation of 
the dip of the coal strata at the Blossburg basin, if the angle 
was extended to lake Seneca, it shows we should be many thousand 
feet below its line. The waters flowing north from the Allegha- 
nies, of which Laurel mountain is the most prominent point in 
that direction, having formerly been discharged through the lake, 
it presents the interesting spectacle of the water shed to large 
streams, being removed 60 miles north from the interior of Penn- 
sylvania to the interior of New York. 
The rocks lying upon the northerly shores of the lake, are 
composed of argillaceous slate. At Shingle Point there is an 
outcrop of limestone, and at, and near the head or southern 
extremity, we find a silicious slate. The argillaceous slate con- 
tains numerous fossils. Many parts of the rocks are made up of 
layers of shells several inches in thickness, consisting of bivalves 
and univalves, together with multitudes of trilobites; some of the 
latter are of a very large size. Fragments of the stone lily, 
(encrinites and pentacrinites) with several varieties of coral pre- 
vail in great abundance. I have however, never yet discovered 
any remains of vegetation among them. The gravel upon the 
shores of the lake represents almost every variety of rock, among 
which are specimens of coral, the cavities filled with siliceous 
matter, sometimes of several pounds weight. Upon the west side, 
in the neighborhood of the Miniseta, a large promontory jutting 
into the lake, are lofty banks of argillaceous marl, and blue clay 
stratified, removable with facility in layers of a moderate thickness. 
Saline springs have been discovered upon the west side, a few- 
miles from the shore, and pyritous iron is thickly interspersed among 
the rocks in many places; in some instances the masses amount- 
ing to several pounds. 
