QUATERNARY DEPOSITS. 
217 
On West-Canada creek, above Prospect, the alluvial extends for some distance, showing 
by the side of the creek a height of bank of sixty or eighty feet. The lower part consists of 
dark-colored clay, with some rolled stones ; above which is a mass of sand ; and finally, rolled 
stones, sand and earth. Towards the mouth of the creek, the banks are equally high; but 
as the side or face of the deposit was covered by the materials which have fallen from the 
upper part, no correct opinion could be formed of its nature. 
The alluvial which forms the entrance to Steel’s creek, in Herkimer county, rises from 
thirty to forty feet in height, consisting chiefly of clay and sand ; the clay is brownish, having 
lost its coloring matter by exposure. Near the new dam of Mr. Remington’s forge, the two 
materials are much intermixed. Some parts of the sand show accretions, owing to limestone 
from water, which has cemented the sand, forming a very solid stone. 
The clay on the Mohawk and its tributaries often contains some pebbles of limestone, which 
injures its quality for bricks ; the pebbles being converted into lime by burning, slake, and 
thus mar the quality of the bricks. 
Throughout the great level to the west of Oneida county, the blue and brown clays so com¬ 
mon to the east section of the district, were not distinctly seen ; nor any other than a yellowish 
or a red-colored clay, in any considerable quantity. The yellowish was common over the 
counties of Oswego, Madison, Onondaga and Cayuga, north of the Helderberg range, but its 
position as regards the other deposits of its class was not satisfactorily exhibited in any one 
place. There are but few points through that section, where any striking superposition of the 
different deposits was observed, and none in which the whole were exhibited, owing to but 
few excavations having been made, though hills of alluvion are exceedingly numerous, espe¬ 
cially in the counties of Oswego, Onondaga and Cayuga. The best locality noticed is at 
Chittenango, where three distinct deposits are seen, which separately were observed in many, 
not to say innumerable places in all those four counties. 
The wood-cut No. 76 represents a section of the hill by the side of Judge Warner’s house 
in the village, and in the angle formed by the road which leads to Kirkville, and the street 
which extends down the creek. 
76 . 
1. The first or lowest mass is a yellow sand in layers, having a slight inclination north, 
showing that the waters which deposited it had a southerly direction. The top of the sand 
is deeply water-worn, showing a change of action after deposition. 
Geol. 3d Dist. 28 
