USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Settlement in the West : sketches of Rochester with incidental notices of western New-York > Part 8
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artificial nature of the work. When it was done, and how it could have been done, are interesting inquiries. That the present earth and soil upon it was removed to its present position and deposited on the polished surface is certain. To make an adequate impression of the fineness of the polish on this limestone, it is only necessary to remark that it is fine and glossy like the artificial polish of marble. Professor Hall, one of the state geologists, found the pol- ished limestone at the west in Ogden and on Niagara River.
ALLUVIUM
Is scarcely to be discovered in this vicinity, so confined is the river within its high banks about Rochester. The west side of the river above the falls is much lower than the eastern side, and is raised but little above the river for a short distance. In some places the rock comes to the sur- face ; but generally it is covered for a few feet with the diluvium, which seems to have. suffered but little from the alluvial action of the river. The ridge on which the " Ridge-Road" is placed is probably an extensive case of alluvium, formed long before those changes which the wash- ing of streams has produced. The Flats of the Genesee,
-
81
GEOLOGICAL SKETCHES.
which may be seen to the greatest advantage from the high land about Geneseo and Mount Morris, are beautiful allu- vium.
RIDGE-ROAD.
The Ridge-Road, which is two miles north of the city, lies along an elevated deposite of sand and gravel, or water- worn pebbles. By many it is considered as the former shore of Lake Ontario. From Lewiston on Niagara River to Rochester it is a palpable elevation, forming a most ex- cellent position for the great western road. It is elevated about 150 feet above the lake, and lies in a very direct line, distant from four to six miles from the shore. It extends, not always with the same distinctness, to the eastern boundary of Lake Ontario ; and at Adams, in Jefferson county, is con- founded with an elevation about 300 feet above the lake, or 150 feet higher than at this city. There is a gradual descent from its base, which is depressed often suddenly from six to fifteen feet towards the lake. As the name implies, there is a depression on the south side of nearly the same depth as on the north side, and often extending to a considerable dis- tance. In many places the Ridge-Road is only an elevation of a few rods in width, and nearly equal on both sides, but continues much farther and descends more towards the lake. Professor Eaton attributes this ridge to the outcrop- ping of the red sandstone, which has not so readily disin- tegrated where it comes to the surface. The ridge lies in- deed along the northern limit of the sandstone, which crops out sometimes north and sometimes south of it, and is often penetrated into in sinking wells upon it. But it is plain that the ridge is a different deposite from that which occurs close by it and on both sides of it. The sand and pebbles are peculiar ; not a disintegration, but rolled and deposited by water. The remains of trees and vegetable matter are often found twelve to sixteen feet deep. We have part of a tree, of the white cedar, recently dug out sixteen feet be- low the surface in a well in Greece, about five miles west of the Genesee. A nearly pure vegetable mould, half an inch thick, was also thrown up, which lay upon a bed of fine white sand like that of the lake shore. That the ridge has been heaped up by water there cannot be a doubt; or that the lake once, and not for a long period, washed its northern side. The ridge is often cut through by small streams,
82
SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
which discharge the waters of the southern side into the lake. In some places at the west of this it has been artificially cut through, for the purpose of draining more rapidly the low lands of the south side. A similar ridge is said to exist to some extent on the north shore of Lake Ontario ; also on the south side of Lake Erie in Ohio, and again along a part of Michigan.
There seems reason to believe that the waters once ex- tended over a great part of this state ; that a portion of the eastern barrier at Little Falls, east of Utica, where are the traces of the action of water at a level nearly or quite equal to that of Lake Erie now, was broken away, so that the waters sunk to a considerably lower level ; that thus the waters of Lake Ontario covered a large tract of country to only a moderate depth; that probably the heaping up of ice on these shallow levels laid the foundation for the accu- mulation of gravel and sand, which were increased in suc- cessive years until the ridge was formed ; that the depres- sion should take place on both sides in this way is consist- ent with what now actually takes place in the formation of sandbanks in places along the shore. [See NOTE at the conclusion of this article.] Thus the natural operation of an adequate cause-of a cause easily comprehended, may have raised this ridge, and the waters have extended through the openings for the streams on the south of it. At length, by the bursting of the barrier on the St. Lawrence, the wa- ters subsided to a still lower level, and Lake Ontario sunk to its present dimensions.
The apparent elevation of the ridge in Adams, already mentioned, may seem to form a strong objection to the cause now assigned, and to render more probable the up- heaving of the strata below, as in the case of many banks already mentioned by geologists, by the action of a power beneath, such as subterranean fire, or crystallization of the rocks, or both.
It is to be considered that this ridge is much newer or of much later formation than that of the diluvial hills and sand- banks of this country. "This is proved by the existence of wood and vegetable matter near its bottom, which have not yet been discovered in the diluvial sandbanks near this ridge. The difference between the earth of the ridge and the earth on both sides of it, proves that it is no upheaving of the earth which has been its cause. And, in respect to the
83
GEOLOGICAL SKETCHES.
great apparent elevation of the ridge in Adams, it is proba- ble that there the ridge joins, as it often does along its course westward, upon the diluvial hills which were left at a much greater elevation. Thus, had the Ridge-Road pass- ed by a natural juncture of the ridge with the Pinnacle near Rochester, the elevation there would have been a'great ob- jection to the supposition that this ridge once limited the waters of the lake, while, in truth, such a union would have been perfectly consistent with the operation of the cause now assigned. The high elevations of sand in Adams are probably the hills produced by diluvial action, and the ridge is united to them by a line which has not yet been traced, and may not ever be discovered. In support of this origin of the ridge, it is worthy of consideration that the waters of only a small part of the surface of Lake Ontario are frozen over in the winter. At the mouth of the Genesee, and on each side of it for a long distance, the lake is frozen only for a little way, and the ice is broken in pieces and dashed upon the shore by the winds and waves every few days. At the western part its waters are frozen for many miles. In 1835-6, the steamboat Traveller ran through the winter from Niagara to Toronto, across the lake in a direct line thirty-six miles. In March of that winter, the ice once cov- ered the whole distance, and was broken through by the boat. On the return of the boat the water was found frozen again in the passage, but only half an inch thick. But this is a rare occurrence : it now took place in a very cold win- ter, and when the waters had been unruffled by winds for some days, or, as the engineer of the boat remarked, " du- ring a calm." So great is the depth of the lake, having been sounded at the depth of three hundred feet in some places (which is lower than the surface of the ocean), that only partial congelation can take place. When the waters stood at a higher level, this would be the case ; but, owing to the moderate depth of the water for several miles, a greater quantity of ice and of greater thickness would be formed, which, being dashed up by the winds and waves, would form a natural foundation for the deposition of sand and gravel, which ultimately produced the ridge. And, finally, the nearly direct line of the ridge at nearly the same distance from the lake (yet not following the tortuous course of the shore, and lying on land so nearly of the same level), gives great probability that the real formation of the ridge is
84
SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
now understood. It is not, indeed, a new theory exactly but a modification or expansion into a definite form of one that often is advanced by those who have lived upon the ridge, and made it a subject of careful examination.
NOTE .- Connected with the foregoing theory, which was furnished to us by Professor Dewey several months ago, we may here introduce some remarks by a traveller who re- cently examined the ocean dikes in Holland. It is for the reader to determine the extent to which these remarks may be considered as strengthening the theory advanced with ref- erence to the formation of the great dike or ridge along the shore of Ontario, &c. It may be premised, however, that the latter is not barren like the formation in Holland. The traveller, recounting his adventures in Holland as illustrative of some opinions which he expressed concerning certain ge- ological appearances on the western prairies, says, through Silliman's Journal :-
" Having entered Holland at its northern border, and passed on to the seaboard, I determined at some spot along the coast to examine the natural dikes thrown up by the sea, of which I had no very definite idea. I had never met with any detailed account of them, and supposed them to be a strip of sandbank washed up by the waves, eight or nine feet high and about twice as wide, on which a person might walk and look directly down on the sea on one side, with the meadow- land immediately adjoining on the other.
"Soon after leaving Leyden for the Hague, I turned from the thronged highway, and, after crossing a rich cultivated district of two miles in width, found myself at the edge of the ocean dike. But it was far different from what I had anticipated. I saw, on approaching it, that it was much higher than I had supposed, and, when I sprung up the side of the huge bank, instead of having the North Sea directly at my feet, I saw before me what seemed as if it had been an ocean of fluid sand (if I may use so unphilosophical a phrase), ar- rested suddenly after a storm and set at rest. Having en- tered upon it, I was soon in as entire and dreary a solitude as if I had been on the burning deserts of Africa. Not an insect crossed my path, and I wandered on from sandhill to sandhill till I grew weary of the labour. Only at one place was there any sign of vegetation. It was at a spot where, for some cause or other, a basin had been form- ed capable of retaining moisture, and in this some grass and
85
GEOLOGICAL SKETCHES.
a variety of bushes had grown up. All the rest was a succession of sandhills. I crossed this dike transversely, but computed its direct breadth to be at least two miles. The hills of sand I judged to be from thirty to fifty feet in height.
" As I walked on, the strong resemblance between the surface of this place and that of the wooded region in the ' barrens' of our prairies struck me repeatedly and forcibly. I had here also the commencement of a little lake or prairie, and they appear also to be both composed of the same material, a pure sand. I had often, while out in Indiana, been puzzled in attempting to account for what I saw there, and now a theory flashed upon me, with which I amused myself while toiling over the sands. But I began this letter by saying that I was only going to state facts, not theories ; and, indeed, I soon became glad to shorten my speculations and make for the nearest point of the coast, for I found the hills of loose sand sometimes terminating with a perpendic- ular face, down which, if I had happened to stumble, I should have brought a torrent of sand after me, sufficient to bring my speculations and myself to an untimely end. I was really glad when the North Sea, covered with white caps, and studded with numberless sails, burst upon my sight.
" It is easy for a person walking along the shore to see how this broad belt of sandhills has been formed. The coast is shoal, and the waves wash up the light sand, which, as soon as it is dry, is caught up by the wind and whirled into the piles which have been just described.
" Abreast of the Hague is an opening or cut through this bank, apparently partly natural and partly artificial. It is about fifty feet wide, is level, and planted with an avenue of noble trees, and forms the communication between this city and its little seaport, Schefeningen, if seaport that can be called, where port there is none, and where vessels that would be safe must be drawn high and dry upon the beach.
" I will only add that, as I came down the banks of the Rhine, I passed at Eltenberg a very high ridge of sand, ex- tending, it appeared to me, across the valley of that river. After entering Holland I crossed also, just south of Arnheim, another such a sandy ridge running from east to west, but much wider than the former, being about fifteen miles across, Then we came again to low flat land, and, lastly, to the sandy strip or dike at the coast. Query .- May not the
8
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SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
shore of the North Sea have been in remote times at Elten- berg, and then again near Arnheim, and those two belts thus also have been ocean dikes ?"
The quotation of these remarks here will hardly be con- sidered irrelevant by those who are anywise interested in examining the geological phenomena of the country of the lakes, especially the formation of the ridge which runs past the northern boundary of the City of Rochester.
Some interesting speculations on the geological features of the Ridge-Road, as connected with the antiquities of the country, from the pen of De Witt Clinton, are imbodied in another article respecting that wonderful natural highway.
TRANSPORTATION OF BOULDERS.
This subject is one of considerable difficulty in the ap- prehension of the generality of people. It is often heard with a look of the fullest incredulity, as if the individual would, if he knew it, utter the language of Horace, Credat Judeus Apella ! As a fact, its possibility is often denied ; and yet, as a fact, it has long received the fullest credence of the whole class of geologists, including a host of the most dis- tinguished philosophers of all religious opinions for more than half a century. The reason is, that the appearances lead to this conclusion. It is only want of knowledge of facts that continues a momentary doubt in any minds. To such, the evidence of the transference of rocks of no ordinary size, and in abundance, from the Alps to the Jura Mountains, and about the Lake of Geneva, so fully shown by geologists, needs only to be known. To this might be added the boul- ders of graywacke borne from the eastern part of this state into Massachusetts over the separating range of mountains, and a multitude of others in our country and Europe, un- doubted by all who have examined them.
Boulders of the primitive rocks lie scattered over this state and far to the west. No layers of rocks like them are found for a great distance. The supposition of their for- mation in the places where they lie cannot find any support. They must have been transported from distant regions. Their rounded and worn form shows the attrition of the tumbling waters and rolling sands. How could they have been removed ? Though the difficulties of the subject may not be all removed, and the action of a cause operating
87
GEOLOGICAL SKETCHES.
with more power than we are familiar with may be judged necessary, yet the following considerations may lessen these difficulties in some degree. Currents of water act with great power. The flood of a river has moved along large rocks of some tons weight many rods in a day. Deeper currents would have a greater effect. Ice occasion- ally transports masses of stone down the streams. Again, the specific gravity of these rocks is little more than twice that of water. Nearly half the weight of rocks would be supported by the upward pressure of fresh water, and more still by that of salt water-giving great advantage to the action of powerful currents. Here is a mighty power, ade- quate to the production at least of great effects. The power of water and ice operating on a great scale would seem to be amply sufficient for the transference of these boulders. A large boulder of granite has been mentioned. Some as large, and one a little larger, are in the east part of Ogden, seven miles west of Rochester. Near the same place is a large boulder of saccharine limestone, the only consider- able mass of this rock which has occurred to me. More than one hundred feet up the Pinnacle, a little southeast of Rochester, lies a boulder of graywacke of great size, ten and a half feet long, ten feet wide, and three to four feet deep.
RETROCESSION OF THE FALLS.
Very little change in the Falls of the Genesee at Roches- ter has been observed since the settlement of the place. The ferriferous sandrock over which the water of the upper step of the Lower Falls is precipitated, is one of the hardest rocks of this stratum. It is certainly as hard as the graywacke limestone of the Middle or Upper Falls. The gray sand- stone over which passes the water of the Lower Falls at the last pitch, is not so hard, perhaps, as the rock at the other falls : still, it seems to be very slowly worn away. The suggestion in the Geological Report of 1836 (page 170) made to the Legislature of the State, that the three falls of the Genesee at Rochester will ultimately become one, may possibly be found true ; but the union must unquestionably be placed at so remote a period, that men of business and enterprise need not make its probability an element in their plans or calculations for hundreds of generations. To those who believe that the Genesee has cut its way for so many miles through the rocks in a nearly perpendicular chasm, it
88
SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
would appear that thousands of years must roll away before the junction of the Lower and Upper Falls will occur.
CARBONATE OF SODA.
This salt effloresces on the walls of the Genesee, about midway between the falls, under the high bluff and over- hanging rocks of the east bank, in Rochester. It exudes from the rocks a few feet above the layers of pearly terre- bratulites in the marly slate, and appears for several rods, where the jutting rocks protect it from being washed away by rains. This salt has much interest, as it directs us to one source of the common salt in our springs. The waters abound with muriate of lime, which would be decomposed by the carbonate of soda, and common salt be formed. The efflorescence occurs in greatest abundance in the rocks just below the limestone in which the trilobites are found most plentifully.
MINERAL SPRINGS.
Besides those mentioned in the account of the rocks, these springs occur with frequency.
The Monroe Spring, about five miles east of the city, owned by Mr. Tousey, is well known. It is strongly im- pregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, and seems to possess few other mineral properties. In the town of Ogden, eleven miles west of Rochester, is another hepatic water, very strongly impregnated with the same gas. It was found in deepening a well. The blasting was continued in the rock of calciferous slate or graywacke limestone. In a few hours the water becomes milky from the deposition of sulphur.
About a mile west of the city is a similar water, used also as a bathing establishment. Often, in that direction, hepatic springs occur. The well-known Bathing-House in Buffalo- street, Rochester, is supplied from one of these springs. The sulphuretted gas has nearly disappeared from it, from some change in the direction of the waters beneath the sur- face. It is often resorted to for the luxury of bathing. But the principal mineral water in the city flows from the
LONGMOOR SPRING.
The Messrs. Longmoor, to obtain a supply of water for their brewery, bored nearly 200 feet. They began in the graywacke limestone on the east bank of the Genesee, about fifteen feet above the level of the Middle Falls, and extend-
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GEOLOGICAL SKETCHES.
ed the boring through the strata into the sandstone. They obtained water strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hy- drogen, and containing considerable common salt, and some Epsom salt and soda. These substances give to the water a pleasant taste, lively and pungent. The water is drank for health and pleasure. It is cool also, and in the warm season is a real luxury to those who relish its taste. In April its temperature was 48°, while that of the river was 41º ;
in June, 66 49°, 66
67° ;
in July, 66 66 50°,
67°;
Aug. 2,
52°,
71°;
Nov. 30,
5170°, 66 66
45°.
ELEVATIONS.
The following table of elevations of different points may be interesting in connexion with the foregoing statements. The facts have been taken from the surveys of the proposed routes of canals and railroads. Some of them have been obligingly communicated from the unpublished notes of the engineers-some have been ascertained specially for this work.
Feet.
Lake Erie is above the level of tide water, . 570 The top of Niagara Falls is below Lake Erie, 66
The bottom of Niagara Falls is below Lake Erie, 226 Descent from the Falls to Lewiston, 104
Lake Ontario below Lake Erie, 330 64
Canal at Rochester is below Lake Erie,
Surface of the Canal at Rochester is above the rock over which the waters roll at the Mid- dle Falls, . 31
Middle Falls (96 feet) at Rochester are below the Falls of Niagara, · 23
Top of the Rapids, 12 miles south of Rochester, above Erie Canal at Rochester, 2
The summit of the Rapids and Niagara Falls are on a level.
Erie Canal at Rochester is above Lake Ontario, 266 Middle Falls at Rochester above Lake Ontario, 235 .
Middle Falls at Rochester pitch perpendicular, 96
Upper step of the Lower Falls, 25
Second step of the Lower Falls,
84
Summit level of Genesee Valley Canal is 11} 8*
90
SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
miles long, and above Erie Canal at Roches- Feet. ter, .. 1057 Summit level of Genesee Canal above Lake Erie, 993 Allegany River at Olean, above Canal at Roches- ter, 978 Ohio River at Pittsburgh is below Olean, from Olean to Pittsburgh being 280 miles, 700
Ohio River above canal at Rochester, 278
Ohio River above Lake Erie, 214
Coalbed at Pittsburgh above Ohio River, 329
66 above Lake Erie, 543
above Canal at Rochester, 617
above Lake Ontario, 883
Ohio River at Little Beaver River, near the west line of Pennsylvania, is above Lake Erie, 75
Coalbed near Little Beaver River above Lake Erie, 412
Elevation of the hill above the coal, . 80 476
Elevation of this coal above the Canal at Rochester,
Height of the red sandstone above the level of Genesee River at the Ontario Steamboat- Landing, in the north part of Rochester, 120
Thickness of gray sandstone or grayband,
4
ferriferous slate, . 23
argillaceous iron ore,
1
ferriferous sandrock,
10
calciferous slate to the rock of pente- merus,
3
to the next layer of
argillaceous slate, 3
argillaceous slate to the layers of fine shells, .
15
whole thickness of this argillaceous slate, 24
¥ calciferous slate to top of Middle Falls, 112 to level of Rapids, 33
Height of east bank of Genesee, 50 rods below Lower Falls, 215
Thickness of mountain limestone, from the gray sandstone at Lower Falls to the summit of the Rapids, without allowing for the dip, is 184 The dip for this distance about .
200 Real thickness of the mountain limestone to the Rapids, about 384
MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY, &c.
THE influence which the improvement of the country has exerted upon the health of the people is remarkably exem- plified in the history of Western New-York. The diseases of the " Genesee country" have been strikingly modified or almost wholly changed in some respects within the last quarter century. So great has been the change, that some persons remote from the scene may be inclined to doubt the existence of the phenomena, unless presented with conclu- sive proofs.
A brief retrospect of the maladies of the population, from the period of the first settlements by the White Man, may be appropriately inserted here, for the convenience of reference, and for the illustration which it abundantly furnishes of the foregoing assertions. In quoting the testimony of Doctors Coventry and Ludlow-both of whom were formerly resi- dents of Geneva, though the first-named has long resided in Utica, and the latter in New-York-reference is made to the discourse delivered by Dr. C. before the Oneida Medical Society, of which he was president, in 1823, and to the Es- say on the Genesee Country published by Dr. L. in the New-York Medical and Physical Journal during the same year.
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