USA > New York > Saratoga County > History of Saratoga County, New York : with historical notes on its various towns > Part 3
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Of a truth the surface of Saratoga county is about equally divided between the two great mountain systems of the Atlantic slope of North America-the Laurentian to the north and west, and the Appalachian to the east and south.
Properly to comprehend the situation some description should be given of these dominat- ing mountain systems.
I .- APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS.
The long chain of mountain ranges which constitutes the Appalachian system stretches in a continuous unbroken line, parallel with the Atlantic coast line, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south. These mountains were so named by the Spaniards under De Soto, from a tribe of Indians called Ap-a-la-chans, who inhabited their southern foot-hills, and among whom he passed the winter while on his way to the discovery of the Mississippi. It is a remarkable peculiarity of this whole system that the main line trends from northeast to southwest, while the numberless separate ranges with their intervening valleys extend almost uniformly due north and south. An
example of this latter fact is the long valley of the Hudson and Lake Champlain, of which Saratoga county forms a part, which extends from New York City on the Atlantic sea board to Montreal on the St. Lawrence, a distance of nearly four hundred miles due north and south.
But what is most remarkable about this valley of the Hudson and Lake Champlain is its extraordinary depth, as well as length. This valley is in fact a deep gorge or down- ward fold between high mountain ranges, whose bottom is at no point through its whole length scarcely a hundred feet above the level of the sea, thus forming an almost perfect mountain pass between the Atlantic seaboard and the vast continental interior, comprising the basin of the Great Lakes and the valley of the Mississippi. Everywhere else through- out the whole long line of the Appalachian mountain ranges there is no such pass as that of the deep valley of the Hudson ; everywhere else the routes from the sea coast to the cen- tral continental valley across the mainland lead over high mountain ridges.
It will be seen, therefore, owing to this con- figuration, that in war the valley of the Hud- son was the strategic key of the continent, it being the only overland route for the passage of great armies between the contending par- ties north and south, the other two feasible routes being by water-one up the St. Law- rence and the Great Lakes, the other up the Mississippi.
The vast Appalachian mountain system is not uniform in its structure and rock forına- tions, but is composed of three separate and quite distinct systems, which run along con- tiguous to and parallel with each other in such manner as apparently to be blended into one.
These three Appalachian parallel systems thus seemingly blended differ quite materially in their form and rocky structure. The most easterly division is composed of hard crystaline rocks, mostly granite, mica-schist, gneiss, etc., much like the old Laurentian Adirondack sys-
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
tem. The mountains of New Hampshire, eastern Massachusetts, the Highlands on the Hudson, and further to the south the Blue Ridge in Virginia and the Black mountains of the Carolinas, all belong to the easterly divis- ion of the great Appalachian system. They present a broken and extremely rugged surface, often rising into high mountain peaks, impart- ing to the landscape a decidedly Alpine char- acter.
The middle division of the Appalachian system presents characteristics quite distinct from the eastern line of ranges above de- scribed. It is composed mostly of limestones, slates and shales, but which, in the mighty upheaval when the mountains were brought forth in the earth's travail, were tumbled and twisted together in almost indistinguishable confusion.
The Taghkanics of western Berkshire county, Massachusetts, the Petersburgh and Bald mountain ranges of Washington and Rensse- laer counties, and the Alleghanies of the south all belong to the middle division. The low foot-hills of this division of the Appalachian ranges extend into Saratoga county, lying be- tween the Hudson river and Saratoga lake, of which Snake Hill is an example. This divis- ion is marked throughout by numberless par- allel ridges with almost uniformly level sum- mits, which are divided by well defined inter- vening valleys, all trending nearly due north and south.
The third division of the Appalachians is quite distinct from the other two, but differs from the second division more in form than in rocky structure. It comprises the long series of comparatively level table land which every- where, with more or less distinctness, form the wide western slope of the whole Appa- lachian system, stretching off along the shores of the great lakes and forming the eastern foot-hill fringe of the great central valley of the Mississippi. The rock strata of this third division still lie mostly unbroken in the level beds in which they were deposited.
II .- THE LAURENTIAN ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS.
The Laurentian mountain system begins far to the east on the cold, inhospitable coast of Labrador, the Norumbega of the old navigators lying north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and runs thence westerly through British America, along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence river and north of the great lakes and across Minnesota to the foot-hills of the Rocky mountains.
At one place only do the ranges of this sys- tem cross to the south side of the St. Lawrence river. That place is at the Thousand Islands. In crossing the St. Lawrence at this place the low, rounded foot-hills of the range form the Thousand Islands, every one of which is a miniature mountain top rising above the sur- face of the water.
After crossing the St. Lawrence into north- ern New York, the Laurentian mountains spread out over the great wilderness region of the Adirondacks easterly to Lake Champlain, southerly to the Mohawk river, and westerly to the Black river, forming a vast region of highlands rising into a thousand mountain peaks, which overlook a thousand gleaming lakes.
The rocks composing the Laurentian moun- tain system constitute the oldest known strata of the earth's crust. These rocks were doubt- less the first dry land which appeared above the primeval ocean, which before they rose above its surface enveloped the whole earth with its wide limitless waste of waters. Out of the dreary, steaming depths of this bound- less ocean there came, in the course of the making of the mountains, these Laurentian rocks, peering into the misty sunshine of the new earth, ages upon ages before the softer rocks of the great Appalachian system of what is now the Atlantic slope were deposited in the bed of the old Silurian sea. These old Laurentian rocks constitute a large part of the surface of Saratoga county.
In the Adirondack wilderness, in its moun -.
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
tain belt are five well defined mountain ranges, two of which extend into Saratoga county, the Palmertown and the Kayaderrosseras ranges. The Palmertown range, which is the most easterly of all the Adirondack ranges, begins on Lake Champlain, near Ticonderoga, and then extending southerly along both sides of Lake George, crosses the Hudson river in its course, and continuing further south, finally ends in Judge Henry Hilton's Woodlawn Park, on the northern border of the village of Sara- toga Springs. Its principal peak of note south of the Hudson, in Saratoga county, is Mount MacGregor, famous as the last residence of General Grant.
The other Adirondack mountain range which extends into Saratoga county from the north is the Kayaderrosseras range. This range begins at Crown Point, in Essex county, on Lake Champlain, and runs thence southerly through part of Essex and the whole of Warren into Saratoga county, filling up the whole north- western corner of the county with its rugged mountain masses. In trending further south this range blends with a spur of the Helder- bergs, which is an Appalachian range that rises south of the Mohawk. This Appalachian part of the Kayaderrosseras is plainly seen from the village of Saratoga Springs in the high level ridge that there fills up the western horizon.
III. - APPALACHIAN FOOT HILLS.
The southeastern part of Saratoga county is characterized by a series of long, low ranges of hills, which are the foot-hills of the Appa- lachian mountain system lying west of the Hudson, with their well-defined, intervening valleys. These extend between Saratoga lake and the river, and occupy all that part of the county which lies easterly of the central sand plain.
These hills rise, on the east side of tlie Hudson opposite in Washington county, into the Bald mountain range. One of these Ap- palachian foot-hills in Saratoga county is of
world-wide historic fame as Bemus Heights, near which the two decisive battles of the Burgoyne campaign of 1777 were fought re- spectively on the 19th of September and 7th of October.
IV. - RIVERS AND LAKES.
THE HUDSON RIVER, which for about seventy miles of its course follows the northern and eastern borders of Saratoga county, rises among the highest peaks of the Adirondack mountains. Its highest source fountain is a little lakelet which is more than four thousand feet above the sea level, upon the side of Mount Marcy, called by Verplank Colvin "Tear of the Clouds." Its extreme head- spring is in the mountain gorge called the Indian Pass, high up on the side of Mount McIntyre. A sister spring close by is the head-spring of the River Au Sable, whose waters run northerly into the St. Lawrence.
Among the mountains the Hudson has nu- merous branches, the principal of which are the Opalescent, the Boreas, the Schroon, the Jessups, the Cedar, the Indian, and the Sa- condaga.
Thus taking its rise among the highest peaks of the Adirondacks, its branches unite and the main stream, breaking through its mountain barriers, enters its broad upper valley on the northern border of Saratoga county, and soon turning southward rolls on to the sea.
From Waterford, on the southern border of Saratoga county, the Hudson is naturally an arm of the sea, in which the tide ebbs and flows one hundred and fifty miles above the river's mouth. Thus the Hudson in its course breaks through the Appalachian ranges as well as the Laurentian-Adirondacks.
THE MOHAWK RIVER, which for several miles of its course marks the southern border of Saratoga county before it enters the Hudson, also draws its waters mostly from the Adiron- dack wilderness. Its main branches, the East and the West Canada creeks - Indian name Ka-na-ta-take their rise in the heart of the
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Adirondacks. The Indians always considered the West Canada creek to be the main stream instead of that branch which flows from the north, now called the main stream, above the confluence of the West Canada creek.
The Cahoes Falls, in the Mohawk on the southern border of Saratoga county about two miles above the junction of the two rivers where the Mohawk falls from the Appalachian foot-hills into the valley of the Hudson, pre- sent an object of striking interest.
THE KAYADERROSSERA RIVER flows wholly within the borders of Saratoga county. It takes its rise among the Laurentian foot-hills of the Kayaderrossera mountain range in the northwestern part of the county and runs first southerly to near the center of the county. Then it turns easterly, running through Balls- ton Spa -the county seat - and empties into Saratoga Lake. It takes its name from the old Indian hunting-ground of which it was the principal stream, or rather it may be said the hunting-ground derives its name from the stream, for the name signifies in the Indian tongue "the crooked river."
SARATOGA LAKE is an enlargement of this stream, lying about three miles easterly of Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa, and is about six miles long and two miles in width. The basin of this lake seems to be a depres- sion scooped out in one of the valleys that run between the Appalachian foot-hills. One of these hills is a conspicuous object at the lake called " Snake Hill."
FISH CREEK, the stream which empties into the Hudson at Schuylerville, is the outlet of Saratoga Lake. It is in reality a continuation of the Kayaderrossera river -the latter stream loses its identity in the lake and emerges therefrom under another name-so called on account of the great abundance of fish caught therein in former days. The fish were shad and herring, which ran up the Hudson and through Fish Creek into Saratoga Lake in im- mense numbers during the days of the early settlers of the region roundabout.
THE ANTHONY'S KILL, which empties into the Hudson at Mechanicsville, rises in the high grounds upon the southeastern part of the county, and runs first northeasterly, and then southerly until it reaches the Hudson, as stated above. Its Indian name is Tien-en-da- ho-wa, whose signification is lost.
ROUND LAKE, one of the principal lakes of the county, which is near the station by that name on the D. & H. Co. R. R., is an expan- sion of this stream.
BALLSTON LAKE, which lies near the Sche- nectady branch of the same railroad, is another expansion of the same stream.
THE EEL-PLACE CREEK, a stream often men- tioned in old annals, rises near the head waters of the Anthony's Kill, westerly of Ballston Lake, and runs southerly into the Mohawk, a few miles below the city of Schenectady.
THE MOURNING KILL rises among the hills in the western part of the county south of the centre, and running easterly empties into the Kayaderrossera a short distance below Ballston Spa.
These last named streams and lakes are historically important on account of having formed a part of one of the old Indian trails which led from the Indian castles on the Mo- hawk to Montreal on the St. Lawrence. This trail led along waters navigable by bark canoes nearly the whole distance. ] It ran down the Mohawk past Schenectady to Eel-Place Creek, thence up that stream and across a short car- rying place to Ballston Lake; thence down the lake and its outlet and across a short car- rying place to the Mourning Kill, thence down that stream to the Kayaderrossera; thence down that stream, across Saratoga Lake, and down the Fish Kill to the Hudson ; thence up and across the Hudson to the Fort Edward Creek; thence up that stream and over a car- rying place into Wood Creek; thence down that stream to Lake Champlain, and so on to the St. Lawrence.
THE SNOOK KILL is a considerable stream in the northeasterly part of the county, which
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
rises not far from Mt. MacGregor, and runs easterly into the Hudson.
LAKE DESOLATION is situate near the summit of the Kayaderrosseras mountain range, its outlet leading into the Mohawk. This lake lies in the line of the other Indian trail which led overland from the Mohawk country to Lake George and Lake Champlain, and thence to Candada. Its name was first applied by a band of tory refugees who were belated there in the fall of 1775 on their way to Canada, in the gloom and desolation of the old wilderness.
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THE RIVER SACONDAGA, one of the principal forest branches of the Hudson mentioned above, runs easterly through the mountainous region in the north part of the county, and enters the Hudson opposite the village of Lu- zerne, in Warren county, a summer resort of some note on the Adirondack R. R.
CHAPTER III.
OUTLINES OF GEOLOGY.
I .- GEOLOGIC TIME.
The geology of Saratoga county is of sur- passing interest. This is principally owing to the singularity of its topography. Lying along the dividing line between the two great moun- tain systems of the Atlantic slope, it presents a great variety of rock strata within a short compass.
The science of geology, it may be said, to some extent unfolds to us the mysteries of the world's creation. The earth itself, like the plant or animal it sustains on its surface, is like them of growth, of development. To trace this development we need not look for causes other than those now in operation.
In the realm of nature the present always indicates what the past has been as well as what the future has in store.
The different periods of the earth's growth are more or less distinctly marked upon the
rock structure of its surface. These periods are surely indicated by the various forms of fossil, animal and vegetable life exhibited in the rocks, and thus, their history written upon the rocks, they form the subdivisions of geol- ogic time.
The geology. of Saratoga county can best be explained by referring somewhat in detail to the geologic ages of the earth, based upon the progress of life and living things through their successive periods of development from the lowest to the highest forms of existence.
The subdivisions of geologic time are as follows, viz: eras, ages, periods and epochs.
The eras are five in number, marked in all by seven ages of development in organic life, which are tabulated below, beginning with the lowest and oldest rocks and ending with the highest formation and most recently deposited rocks, as follows :
I. Archæan Era, including the Azoic (with- out life) and the Eozoic (the dawn of life).
1st. Laurentian age - Upper and Lower.
II. Palæozoic Era (old life).
2d. The Silurian, or Age of Mollusks.
3d. The Devonian, or Age of Fishes.
4th. The Carboniferous, or Age of Coal Plants.
III. Mesozoic Era (middle life).
5th. The Reptilian Age.
IV. Cenozoic Era (recent life).
6th. The Age of Mammals.
V. Psychozoic Era (era of mind ). 7th. The Age of Man.
Each of the seven ages above specified are subdivided into numerous periods, and the periods again into epochs.
Thus systematized geologic science is a history of the origin of the earth's visible structure written on the rocks which form its surface. Thus we can follow this rock-written history from the lowest forms of dawning life found in the oldest rocks up through all the wondrous scale of being to the present age of man, the crowning life of all.
The geological formations found in Saratoga
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
county and its bordering mountain ranges pre- sent rocks which mark only a few periods of the first and second eras and first and second ages represented in the above table; that is to say, they do not rise above the Trenton period in the Lower Silurian Age of Mollusks.
II .- THE ARCHAAN ERA -- LAURENTIAN AGE.
The great Canadian Laurentian mountain system which is so well represented in the great wilderness, stretches its rugged, towering masses far down into Saratoga county.
The rocks of the Laurentian system are the oldest known strata of the earth's crust.
In the Archæan era of the earth's history the arrangement of land and water in respect of oceans and continents must have been di- rectly the reverse of what it is now. What is now the American continent was all covered by the waters of an ocean, which was the old Silurian sea, except the part which now con- stitutes the Laurentian system at the north. Then northeastern Canada was all there was of North America, and what is now the wilder- ness region of the Adirondacks was an island in the Silurian ocean. Then to the eastward what is now the Atlantic ocean was the Arch- æan continent of Atlantis, and to the westward, where now is the Pacific ocean, was the Arch- æan continent of Pacifis. From off the moun- tain slopes of these two Archæan continents of Atlantis and Pacifis, on either hand mighty rivers poured their waters into the Palæozoic Silurian sea, which then covered the greater part of North America. The waters of those Archæan rivers carried into the Silurian sea the debris which, settling in its bed, slowly throughout the geologic ages formed the vast beds of sedimentary rocks which now form the Appalachian mountain system of the eastern slope and the Rocky mountains and Cordilleras system of the western slope of what is now North America.
The geologic Palæozoic ages during which the old Silurian sea covered the American con- tinent must have compassed vast periods of
time-millions of years-for many of the Palæozoic beds of sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian system are many thousand feet in thickness.
Then, at length, in a tremendous cataclysm as the earth's crust cooled, there came a mighty upheaval and folding together, as it were, of the earth's surface in the bottom of the old Silurian Sea, and the vast Appalachian system rose dripping from its waters into its mountain ranges.
At the same time there was a profound de- pression to the eastward, and the continent of Atlantis sank down beneath the waters of what is now the Atlantic ocean.
The continent of Pacifis remained much longer than Atlantis in its original position, but at length, after the Devonian age had passed away, that sank beneath the waves of the Pacific ocean, and the long mountain chains of the Cordilleras and the Rocky mountain ranges arose over the western slope, and the oceans and continents assumed their present shape and contour.
It therefore appears in North America that the Archæan continent of Laurentian rocks is mostly deeply buried under a newer continent of Palæozoris rocks. All except the north- eastern part, in which now appear the Lau- rentian rocks, is now buried just as in the Old World there are many cities in which an an- cient city is buried under a modern one.
Until a few years ago the Laurentian system was termed by geologists Azoic, or without, but the more recent discoveries show evidences of both animal and vegetable life in great abundance, but life in its earliest forms. It is the prehistoric, mythical era of geological time now called the Archæan or Eozoic time --- the time of dawning life. .
The Laurentian rocks are mostly of the metamorphic series related to granite, gneiss, syenite and the like. But they embrace only the most ancient of these rocks, for the New England granites and schists belong to later ages.
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OF SARATOGA COUNTY.
Besides true granite and gneiss there are diorite, a rock formed of feldspar and horn- blende without quartz, and also very extensive ranges of coarse granite-like rocks of grayish and reddish brown colors, composed mainly of crystallized Labradorite or a related feld- spar joined with the brownish black and bronzy foliated hyperstene. These rocks also contain green, brown and reddish colored por- phyry serpentine limestone (statuary marble), granular quartz, magnetic and specular iron ore, a hard conglomerate ophiolites or verd- antique marbles of different varieties, garnets, tourmaline, scapolite, Wollastonite, sphene, rutile, graphite, phlogopite, apatite, chondro- dite, spinel zircon, and corundum.
III. - PALEOZOIC ERA -SILURIAN AGE.
In the order of geologic time, next above the Laurentian age of the Archæan era, comes the Silurian age of the Paleozoic era. This age, ushers in the vast beds of sedimentary rock out of which the great Appalachian mountain system is mostly formed.
The Appalachian system, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, filling up the whole Atlantic slope with its broken and distorted strata. Only the middle and western divisions of the Appalachian sys- tem are represented in Saratoga county -the eastern division corresponding to them being the easterly part of the Green mountain range. Those two divisions extend into the south- eastern part of the county till they meet the Laurentian on the north and west.
The rocks which belong to the Paleozoic era in Saratoga county are of the Lower Silurian age, and those next above the Laurentian be- long to the Potsdam or Primordial period.
First in order comes the Potsdam sandstone, and next above, and resting on that, is the Calciferous sandrock. The Calciferous sand- rock is the grayish rock which underlies all the northwestern part of the village of Sara- toga Springs, and may often be seen cropping
out near North Broadway, in all the upper part of the village.
A narrow belt of Calciferous sandstone cov- ering Potsdam sandstone extends across the county, lapping over on to the lower edge of the old Laurentian rocks.
In this Primordial period the remains of life appear in its lower marine, but not fresh water forms, in great abundance. These rocks were deposited in the shallow beds of the Silurian ocean when its waves beat along the old Laurentian shore.
Algæ, or sea weeds, are the only plant forms found in the Potsdam sandstone and Calcifer- ous sandstone epochs.
The animal remains of this period are all marine, as follows :
I. Among Protozoans are found sponges and rhizo-pods.
2. Among Radiates are found crinoids, grap- tolites, and, it may be, coral making polyps.
3. Among Mollusks are found bryozoans, brachiopods, conchifers, pteropods, gaster- pods, and cephalodes, thus representing all the grand divisions of Mollusk life.
4. Among Articulates may be found marine worms, crustaceans of the trilobite tribes, and ostracoids.
The most abundant fossils found in the Potsdam beds are the brachipod genus, lingula and trilobites. The trilobites were the largest animals of the seas, and highest in rank. Of them there were numerous kinds, varying in size from the sixth of an inch to two feet.
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