Geographical gazetteer of Jefferson county, N.Y. 1684-1890, Part 3

Author: Child, Hamilton, 1836- [from old catalog] comp; Horton, William H., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., The Syracuse journal company, printers and binders
Number of Pages: 1384

USA > New York > Jefferson County > Geographical gazetteer of Jefferson county, N.Y. 1684-1890 > Part 3

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JEFFERSON COUNTY.

tendency to the formation of swamps, from the impermeable character of this: material. The soil is generally fertile, and especially adapted to grazing. Wherever diluvial action has existed it has worn, with little difficulty, broad valleys and removed immense quantities of the detritus to other places.

These shales form a ridge of highlands, extending from this county, through Oswego, Lewis, Oneida, and Herkimer counties, being known in Lewis as Tug Hill. The margin of this elevated tract is worn into deep ravines, but when the head of these is reached the country becomes level and sometimes. swampy.

The limestone occurs in terraces, with steep but not precipitous margins, the whole of which is covered with a soil derived from its own decoriposition where not protected by drift. The soil is inclined to be thin, and conse- quently liable to be affected with drouth, but is extremely fertile, and alike adapted to grass and grain. The richest and best portions of Jefferson County, if not in the state, are underlaid by this rock. Running streams, when small, do not wear ravines, but fall down the slope of the terraces in pretty cascades, broken into foam, and noisy from the numerous points of resistance which they meet. The Burrville cascades, in the southwest border of the town of Rutland, are among the most romantic and picturesque which the county affords.

The calciferous sandstone presents a flat country, with few valleys, and those but a few feet below the level of the adjacent plains. The rock is covered with a very thin soil, derived from its own decomposition, but one of much richness, from the presence of lime. It seldom descends by a gentle slope into the valleys, but presents a shelving ledge, very peculiar to this rock, in this section of the state.

The Potsdam sandstone generally presents a level surface, but more liable to upheavals, and is covered with soil entirely brought from other formations, and varies in quality with sources from which it has been derived. This rock never presents a fertile slope into the valleys, but is bordered with abrupt precipices, at the foot of which are piled huge masses that have tumbled from the face of the ledge.

The primitive rocks of the county present a constant succession of abrupt, rounded edges, scantily covered in a state of nature with timber, and, when cleared, with a thin soil, with intervening valleys of considerable fertility, that have received their soil from the wash of the hills. The nature and amount of soil varies with the rock, and is abundant and fertile where limestone and feldspar abound as its constituents, but much less so where the chief element is quartz. The fact is observable that the south slope of the hills is more abrupt than the north, as if they had been more upheaved.

Drift deposits occur promiscuously over rocks of every age, and when oc- curring in hills present that rounded and conical outline often seen in snow- drifts. These deposits may be distinguished from soil underlaid by rock by the endless variety of rounded outline which they present, and are invariably

MINERAL LOCALITIES.

covered by vegetation. Several remarkable valleys occur in the county that must be attributed to causes that have long since ceased to operate. That of Rutland Hollow, parallel with Black River, continues across the towns of Watertown, Hounsfield, and Henderson, by way of Smithville, to the lake, having both its sides covered with Trenton limestone. It is considered by some authorities to be one of the abandoned beds of Black River. Evidences of the drift period are prominent in this valley, the surface of the rock often presenting a polished and grooved appearance, and at no locality is this more wonderfully shown than at the railroad bridge below Watertown village. The grooves are here widened and deepened into troughs, that obliquely cross the bed of the river, having their surfaces polished and scratched, showing that the rock was then as firm and unyielding as now.

MINERAL LOCALITIES.

Anthracite has been observed in minute quantities in the Trenton lime- stone at Watertown, and also in the Utica slate in the southwestern border of the county. Apatite (phosphate of lime) is found in small crystals near Ox Bow, in massive form on Butterfield Lake, and near Grass Lake in Theresa. Azurite (blue carb. copper) is found on an island in Muskallonge Lake, in Theresa. Calcite (carbonate of lime) occurs at Ox Bow and on the banks of Vrooman Lake. Tufa is found in a few limestone springs, and agaric mineral abounds in the caves on the north side of the river in Water- town. Marl occurs in Pleasant Lake, and satin-spar near Ox Bow, not far from Pulpit Rock. Celestine (sulphate of strontia) is said to occur in Trenton limestone. Chalcodite, a very rare mineral, is frequently obtained at the Sterling iron mine in Antwerp. Chondrodite has also been observed in Ant- werp. Chlorite has been detected in bowlders, but is not common. Copper pyrites has been found in Antwerp, adjacent to Vrooman Lake and near the Ox Bow, and also about three miles from Natural Bridge, in Wilna. Dolo- mite occurs in white limestone. Pearl-spar is found at Ox Bow, coating crys- tals of calcite. Epidote is of frequent occurrence in bowlders of greenstone. It has not been found in its original situation in this county. Feldspar (orthoclase), besides forming a common ingredient in gneiss, often occurs highly crystallized, in Antwerp and Theresa, near Grass Lake, etc. Fluor spar occurs on the east bank of Muskallonge Lake, in Theresa, and is one of the most remarkable localities of this mineral in the state. Graphite (black lead) occurs in minute scales, to a small extent, in the white limestone of Ant- werp. Heavy-spar is found on Pillar Point, in Brownville, on the shore facing Chaumont Bay and Cherry Island, in a vein of Trenton limestone, and in Antwerp, about a mile east from the Ox Box, in a vein of white limestone. It also occurs in Theresa, on the banks of Muskallonge Lake, and in Adams.

Hornblende, of the tremolite variety, is found in bowlders of white lime- stone, and occasionally in small quantities in Antwerp and in Wilna, near

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

Natural Bridge. Amphibole (basoltic hornblende) is found in bowlders in crystals, firmly imbedded in trap and greenstone. Dillage is rarely found in bowlders of chloritic slate. Pargasite, in beautiful green crystals, occurs in white limestone at numerous localities near Ox Bow, and in a neighborhood known as New Connecticut, in Antwerp. Amianthos and asbestos are found in minute quantities in bowlders of serpentine. The latter also occurs near Theresa village. Idocrase, in small brown crystals, occurs occasionally on the banks of Vrooman Lake, near Ox Bow. It has been found in larger crystals in bowlders in Antwerp. Iron pyrites (sulphuret of iron) occurs in Antwerp, Wilna, Theresa, and Alexandria. Labradorite (opalescent feldspar) is occasionally found in bowlders. Limonite, or bog iron, is common in the swamps in Wilna. Ochre occurs in Champion and other towns in small quantities. Magnetite, or magnetic iron ore, has been found in Alexandria. Malachite (green carbonate of copper) is found investing other minerals at Muskallonge Lake, Theresa. Millerite (sulphuret of nickel) occurs at the Sterling iron mine, in Antwerp, in delicate needle-shaped prisms, in cavities of iron ore, associated with spathic iron, chalcodite, and iron pyrites. Mus- covite (nica) occurs rarely in bowlders of granite.

Phlogopite .- This mica occurs frequently in the white limestone, but not in sufficient quantity or in plaits of a size that give it value. It is found on an island in Mill Seat Lake, in small quantities, and at a few localities near Ox Bow. At Vrooman Lake a highly crystallized variety occurs, in which sharply-defined prisms and groupes of crystals are found in great abundance. Pyroxene is common in our primitive rocks. On Grass Lake, in Theresa, it is found white and crystallized, in groupes. Near Ox Bow it has been found in small quantities, and near Natural Bridge in large black crystals, with sphene, etc. Coccolite occurs in the same vicinity. Quartz, while form- ing the greater portion of primary rock, and almost the sole material of sandstone, is rarely found crystallized. On Butterfield Lake, and at several localities in Antwerp, it is found in crystals. At Natural Bridge chalcedony occurs in nodules in white limestone. Flint is a common associate of the Black River limestone. Agate in small quantities is found in Wilna, near Natural Bridge. Jasper and basanite are very rarely found as pebbles in the drift formations. Scapolite in detached crystals is rarely found, imbed- ded in white limestone, in Antwerp. Adjacent to, and perhaps within, the town of Wilna, near Natural Bridge, the variety Nuttallite, in fused crystals of a pearl gray color, occurs with pyroxene and sphene. It is sometimes massive and admits of cleavage. Serpentine is of frequent occurrence in nodules, in white limestone, in Antwerp, but it is far less abundant than in St. Lawrence County. It is various shades of green, and its weathered sur- face becomes white. A mineral allied to this, and named by Prof. Emmons Rensselaerite, but by other authors steatitic pseudomorph, occurs in great abundance in Antwerp and Theresa, where it assumes various colors varying from white, through gray, to black, and a texture from finely granular to

THE ICE AGE.

coarsely crystalline and cleavable. An extensive locality of the jet black and fine-grained variety occurs on Butterfield Lake.

Specular Iron .- The red oxide of iron constitutes the principal ore of this metal in Antwerp, Philadelphia, and Theresa, and may be said to be the prin- cipal ore of Northern New York. It is invariably associated with brittle, va- riegated mineral, which has been named dysyntribite, but which recent anal- yses indicate to be a rock of indefinite composition, closely related to agal- matolite, and varying much in its proportions of alumina, magnesia, lime, and the alkalies. In some form or other this mineral is associated with the ore in every locality where the latter has been noticed in this county, as if it were a necessary associate. Beside this nondescript mineral specular ore is associated with calcite, spathic iron, chalcodite, quartz, Millerite, and, more rarely, heavy-spar. In Theresa this ore was procured during the working of the furnace near Redwood, and has been found on an island in Muskallonge Lake. In the edge of Philadelphia, adjoining Theresa, there occurs a body of specular iron ore between the gneiss and Potsdam sandstone. When wrought alone it makes an iron known to founders as cold short, and from its mixture with lime is found to be very useful as a flux in assisting in the reduction of other ores. The mines which have been wrought with most profit in Northern New York are those in the southwest corner of Gouverneur and adjacent in Rossie. In this same range, in Antwerp, a deposit of iron ore was discovered in 1837, and was developed and wrought by George Par- ish. Adjacent to, and forming a part of this, is the Thompson mine. Ster- ling mine, in Antwerp, was discovered in 1836, its location being in the same range and geological relation as the last. There are seven or eight mines in a range, including those in Philadelphia, apparently coeval in age and pro- duced by a common cause. About two miles from Ox Bow, in Antwerp, occurs the Weeks ore bed, once owned by George Parish.

Sphene (scilecio-calcareous oxide of titanium) is found in white limestone with pargasite, in Antwerp, near Ox Bow, and near Natural Bridge. Spinel, of a pale red color, has been observed in crystals at Vrooman Lake, near Ox Bow, and four miles from that place towards Theresa. Talc occurs in small quantities in bowlders. Tourmaline is occasionally found in gneiss in Antwerp and Theresa. WVad (earthy manganese) has been noticed in swamps in Watertown and elsewhere. Wollastonite (tabular spar) occurs with augite and coccolite at Natural Bridge. Delicate fibrous varieties have been found in bowlders in Wilna.

THE ICE AGE .*

It will be seen by an examination of the cut of the stratagraphical geology on another page that the strata of the rocks of various ages, from the azoic to the Hudson River, inclusive, are found in the county ; but of course the cut can-

* Furnished by D. S. Marvin, of Watertown.

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

not show the fact that the various layers above the archean all thin out before reaching the northern limits of the county. This fact is one that has much significance in a study of the effects of the ice age upon denudation. There are little or no evidences of intense glaciation previous to the tertiary period ; it was not until the quartanary was ushered in that glaciation assumed its grand proportions here. The fact that gneissoidal and granitic rocks are the surface rocks in the northern portions of the county is evidence that the territory was among the earliest portions of the globe to rise above the waters of the primeval ocean without subsequent prolonged subsidence. There are many theories concerning the causes that have produced and ushered in the glacial period, among them the most plausible, changes of level of land sur- face. Visitors to all mountain lands observe snow and ice upon each con- siderable elevation, and perhaps it is sufficient in this connection to cite the fact that glaciation seems to have been one of the finishing processes of world making ; fitting the surface and soil conditions for their capabilities to main- tain and sustain the higher and more important forms of animal existences. The countries that are the most thickly inhabited are the ones that have been submitted to the most intense glaciation. The scenery of lake and forest, the formation of hills and valleys, have in most instances been sculptured and shaped by glaciation.

Professor Agassiz was the first to study the glaciation of the Alps; that of Greenland, Alaska, and other countries has since been studied by others. It has been found that exactly a similar wearing away and scoring of the rocks, the transportation of detritus, and other forms of ice action may be observed all over the north part of the continent, and this is now the accepted explana- tion of the same phenomena and conditions here. They can be accounted for in no other rational manner. It has been thought that there has been more than one period of glaciation, but a study of the local conditions seem to reveal but one period here. The section seems have been in the center and track of the most intense denudation. The movement of the ice lobe seems to have begun upon the shores of the Atlantic, perhaps as far north as Green- land, and slowly crept southward year by year, always most intense upon and near the ocean, or other large bodies of water, and to have extended as far south as Central New Jersey, then following an irregular line northwestward to near the east end of Lake Erie, thence southwestward to Cincinnati, Ohio, thence northwestward to Central Iowa, and continuing via Bismarck, Dakota, to an unknown distance over the Saskatchewan. There was at the same time another lobe moving from Alaska on the Pacific, extending as far south as Northern California, and another extending from North to Central Europe upon the Eastern continent. Ice seems a solid and rigid body, but is really a solid with some of the characteristics of a liquid.

These semi-solid movements have been most carefully studied and measured in Greenland. It has been found that ice moves over that conti- nent wherever there is a slope of 40 feet to the mile ; and in the Alps over a

THE ICE AGE.

like slope the distance of 70 feet a day where there was an ice front of not more than a half mile. On steeper slopes and wider fronts the movement is several hundred feet a day. The power of ice to tear away and transport rock masses from one place to another seems to lie in the fact of congeala- tion at night, and thawing during the day time. Ice expands in freezing. This is the force that loosens and rends the solid mountains. These detached masses, falling upon the ice, are carried to lower levels, or frozen fast to the bottom ice and carried onward with the mass, scoring and grinding the rocks over which they move with prodigous energy.

THICKNESS OF THE ICE.

Glacialists estimate that the lobe of ice upon the shores of the Atlantic, in New England, was over 11,000 feet thick. There has been no careful esti- mate made for the thickness over Northern New York, but it must have been, from like territorial conditions, nearly, or quite, as thick here. The local circumdenudation that has taken place is quite as marked as that of most other localities. There are no high mountains within the region under consid- eration by which to measure the thickness. Dry Hill being the main low range within the county, this has certainly been covered by ice, for there is observed to be an abundance of bowlders and drumlins upon the highest summits. Between the cemetery and the hanılet of Burrville may be seen drumlins, lateral and medial moraines, also in the town of Rutland, and all over the northern, and western, and central portions of the county.

GLACIAL STREAMS.

It was not until the closing scenes of the glacial period, when these great masses of ice were thawing and wasting away, the slow accumulations of many thousands of years, that the system of glacial rivers, seen all over the county, were formed. The more prominent ones came down from the direc- tion of Carthage, trending southwestward, and emptying into Lake Ontario. What is known as Rutland Hollow, and the swamp in the towns of Rutland, Watertown, and Hounsfield, was one of these old glacial river beds, dividing just east of the city of Watertown. One branch flowed along its bed through the cemetery, the other through the fair ground, thus making the site of Watertown an island at that time. Where it crosses the present river, near the new engine works, deep striæ may be seen in the heavy bedded birds-eye limestone. Later on, and nearer the close of glaciation, this channel in Rut- land was filled or dammed with ice, and a lower one, the same as the one now occupied by the present river, formed. The old geologists, before gla- ciation was much studied, believed that the present river channel, from Water- town to Dexter, is later and denuded by causes now in action ; but the better explanation seems to be that the present river bed is the old channel

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

of preglacial erosion, temporarily dammed with ice during the glacial period, and that, upon the ice thawing, the present channel was again reoccupied. It is readily observed and apparent that while the ice sheet overlaid the whole country all previously existing streams became filled and dammed with ice, and new ones established, flowing southward, or, as in the case here, more to the westward.

The St. Lawrence was turned back upon itself ; the waters of Lake On- tario forced to find an outlet into the Hudson through the channel of the Mohawk ; then the channel of the Mohawk was dammed with ice, and the whole watershed reversed and turned westward into the Ohio and the Wabash. The old shores of Lake Ontario, 200 feet above their present level, may be seen in many places and upon different levels as the successive channels were closed and opened. The theory of a molten condition of the earth's center obtains some confirmation from these old lake shores occupying ele- vations. They suggest that the vast masses of ice temporarily depressed the portions of the earth that they covered.

Local conditions to some extent determined the directions of the streams and rivers. The Adirondack Mountains, being a center of local glaciation, forced all outflows of water and ice in southwesterly direction. The glacial scratches, the sculpturing of the hills, and directions of the valleys show this.

The Potsdam sandstone, the strata of the birds-eye limestone, and that of the Hudson River group probably extended further north than at present; but over all the northern and western portions of the county the edges have been denuded and carried away. An examination of the sands that now lie upon the western slopes of the mountains shows them to have been made up from the calciferous and Potsdam sandstone mainly. These same red sands now fill the bottoms of the channels of the old glacial streams, and they over- lie considerable stretches of the surface of the county. The "pine plains " above Great Bend, once densely covered with pine forest, is made up of this sand, so little intermixed with sediment and glacial clays, common over most other portions of the territory, that there is no fertility in the soil, it being almost pure sand.

The southeastern portions of the county seem not to have been so much disturbed by glaciation. The streams are usually old channels of erosion, and the general face of the country, though deeply scored in places, appears more like unglacjated regions. There was undoubtedly the same covering of ice there, but the land being higher, and a little outside of the center of gla- cial activities, the ice melted more slowly. There is a fine natural expos- ure of the edge of the Utica slate, where it thins out in the bed of Sandy Creek, a short distance from Whitesville, perhaps the only natural thinning out exposure left in the county readily found. It was this natural thinning out of the strata that presented the opportunity for the great displays of local dynamic energy ; the ice, following the harder gneiss and granite, easily dis- placed the edges of the stratified rocks, until it met the heavy bedded birds-

THE ICE AGE.

eye limestone in the central portions of the county. Genuine " hogs backs" are seen at Carthage upon the carved and worn beds of gneiss that form the county rock there.

Hudson River Period.

Gray Sandstone.

Lorraine Shale.

Utica State.

Age of Kolusks.

Lower Silurian.

Trenton Period.

Trenton Limestone.

Black River Limestone. Birds eye Limestone.

Calciferous Sandstone.

Potsdam

Period.

‹

Trap,

Porphyry.

Talcose,

Sienile,

Hornblende,

Gneiss,

Rensselaerite,

Serpentine.

Primary Limestone,

Hypersthene,

Oxides of Iron, Lead .

Zinc and Copper appear

in all Archzan rock

found in Jefferson Co.

Primary Period.

Granite,

all appear in this period.

Potsdam Sandstone.

Archæan

GEOLOGICAL SECTION OF THE STRATA OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.

Perch Lake and nearly all the other small lakes in the county are what are termed by glacialists kettle holes. They were formed by glacial detritus, being dropped at the lower ends of depressions, and there has not yet time inter- vened for their filling up, or the wearing down of their outlets. It is in these respects that the county has been benefitted by glaciation ; but taking the county as a whole there may be doubts of any benefits arising out of former glaciation. In too many places the fine preglacial soils have either been covered up or removed to Central and Southern New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, too little time since intervening for the reformation of fertile

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

soils by natural causes. Judging by the data we have in the wearing away of streams it is scarcely ten thousand years since glaciers were floating to Lake Ontario from the Adirondack region, past the site of the city of Watertown.

The heavy bedded clays in the central and western part of the county, under- laid by gravel and bowlders, are true glacial clays, deposited while the lake was at a higher level. In some beds there are intermixtures of blue clay. These have been derived from the denuded Utica slate and Lorraine shale.

Bowlders of gneiss, hornblende, granite, Labradorite,marble, micaschist, and other minerals from the Laurentian rocks of Canada, and the highlands of the Adirondack, some of them weighing an hundred tons, are common and indiscriminately distributed upon and below the surface in nearly all parts of the county.

AMOUNT OF RAIN-FALL FOR 44 YEARS.

Below is a carefully prepared table, by Moses Eames, of the amount of rain-fall in each month of the years from 1846 to and including the year 1889. Of the 44 years there have been 22 years below and 22 years above the average. The yearly average for the 44 years has been 32.88 inches. The total amount for that time was 120.55 feet. Up to 1861 the observations were made in Rutland; after that date in the city of Watertown. The amounts are expressed in inches and hundredths of inches :-

MONTH.

1846

1847

1848

1849

1850

1851

1852

1853

1854

1855

1856

January.

2.72

3.13

1.84

2.07

2.50

1.71

1.68

1.00

2.64

2.91

1.93

February.

1.30

2.18

.87

.70

2.96

2.94

1.42

3.52

2.72

1.62

.76

March.

1.80

1.52

2.61

3.41

1.45

2.46

2.74

3.45

2 21

.80

.76

April.

1.58

2.70

1.69

1.75

2.20

1.46

1.79

2.76

4.07

1.93

2.02

May

2.94

.63

3.01

4.30

3.65

2.91

2.62

3.59

2.25

.93

4.47

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Geographical gazetteer of Jefferson county, N.Y. 1684-1890, Part 3

Author: Child, Hamilton, 1836- [from old catalog] comp; Horton, William H., [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., The Syracuse journal company, printers and binders Number of Pages: 1384

Author: Child, Hamilton, 1836- [from old catalog] comp; Horton, William H., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., The Syracuse journal company, printers and binders
Number of Pages: 1384