DESCRIPTION OF THE NIAGARA QUADRANGLE. By E. M. Kindle and F. B. Taylor.a INTRODUCTION. different altitudes, but as a whole it is distinctly higher than by broad valleys opening northwestward. Across northwestern GENERAL RELATIONS. the surrounding areas and is in general bounded by well-marked Pennsylvania and southwestern New York it is abrupt and escarpments. i nearly straight and its crest is about 1000 feet higher than, and The Niagara quadrangle lies between parallels 43° and 43° In the region of the lower Great Lakes the Glaciated Plains 4 or 5 miles back from the narrow plain bordering Lake Erie. 30' and meridians 78° 30' and 79° and includes the Wilson, province is divided into the Erie, Huron, and Ontario plains From Cattaraugus Creek eastward the scarp is rather less Olcott, Tonawanda, and Lockport 15-minute quadrangles. It and the Laurentian Plateau. (See fig. 2.) The Erie plain abrupt, though higher, and is broken by deep, narrow valleys thus covers one-fourth of a square degree of the earth's sur­ extending well back into the plateau, so that it appears as a line face, an area, in that latitude, of 870.9 square miles, of which of northward-facing steep-sided promontories jutting out into approximately the northern third, or about 293 square miles, the Erie plain. East of Auburn it merges into the Onondaga lies in Lake Ontario. The map of the Niagara quadrangle shows escarpment. also along its west side a strip from 3 to 6 miles wide comprising The Erie plain extends along the base of the Portage escarp­ Niagara River and a small area in Canada. The district thus ment from Auburn to Buffalo, west of which it broadens so as mapped, which has a land area including the bed of Niagara to include the southern part of the triangular peninsula River of about 660 square miles, will hereinafter be referred between Lakes Erie and Huron and a narrow strip along the to as the Niagara quadrangle. It is' situated in the northwest south shore of Lake Erie. Lake Erie is nearly everywhere corner of New York-and includes nearly the whole of Niagara «/ O shallow and its bed may be regarded as a broad depression in County and a little of Erie County. (See fig. 1). the surface of the plain rather than as a distinct lowland. In New York the Erie plain lies along the south shore of' Lake Erie and extends eastward to Genesee River, beyond which it is less distinct. Its surface is from 600 to 800 feet above sea level and is somewhat diversified by broad, shallow valleys. The Onondaga escarpment, so named because it is formed by the resistant Onondaga limestone, bounds the Erie plain on the north and separates it from the Huron plain. It is poorly defined at Buffalo but is more prominent east of that city. Near Akron it is about 100 feet high and east of Genesee River it is still higher. From Auburn eastward to Schoharie Creek it is the escarpment bounding the Allegheny Plateau, the Port­ FIGURE 2. Sketch map of the vicinity of Lake Ontario showing age escarpment having merged into it, and southeast of Scho­ physiographic divisions. harie Creek the Onondaga in turn merges into the Helderberg includes the shallow basin of Lake Erie with a narrow strip escarpment, the great slope bounding the Catskill Plateau on about its southern and western shores, the peninsula of the the northeast and east. Across Ontario it is obscured by drift. Province of Ontario between Lakes Erie and Huron, and a The Huron plain occupies a strip of western New York narrow belt in New York extending from Buffalo eastward to between the foot of the Onondaga escarpment and the crest of Auburn. The Huron plain includes a strip of western New the Niagara escarpment and extends westward into Ontario. York, the northern part of the triangular peninsula of Ontario, In the neighborhood, of Niagara River its surface is nearly and a part of the bed of Lake Huron. The Ontario plain level, except for irregularities due to glacial deposits, and lies includes the shallow basin of Georgian Bay, that part of the about 600 feet above sea level. Near Rochester it is lower, FIGURE 1. Index map of western New York showing location of the Province of Ontario between the bay and Lake Ontario, a part and east of Genesee River it merges gradually into the Ontario Niagara quadrangle. of the bed of the lake, and a strip of New York about the plain, owing to the dying out of the Niagara escarpment. In The location of the Niagara quadrangle (No. 190) is shown by the darker ruling. Published folios describing other quadrangles, indicated by lighter ruling, are as follows: 93, south and east sides of the lake. The Laurentian Plateau Ontario it occupies the northern part of the triangular penin­ Gaines; 93, Elkland-Tioga; 169, Watkins Glen-Catatonk; 172, Warren. occupies a great area in Canada extending from the St. Law­ sula between Lakes Erie and Huron. Toward the northwest In its general geographic and geologic relations the quad­ rence and Georgian Bay northeastward, northward, and north­ its surface gradually rises, so that in places south of Georgian rangle forms a part of the border zone in which the Appala­ westward for hundreds of miles. Bay it is more than 1500 feet above sea level. chian province merges into the Glaciated Plains. Although the two provinces are distinguished by their broad general characters they are not separated by a definite boundary, and all parts of the region in which the quadrangle is situated have had a common geologic history, recorded in the rocks, the structure, and the topography. fu-<^_- -g^lARIO^>^- LakoQnt* -^T^ed'^a S£rou?__^. ^ GENERAL GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF THE REGION. FIGURE 3. Diagrammatic south-north section through the center of the Niagara quadrangle from the Pennsylvania-New York Geographic divisions. The Appalachian province is bounded State line to the Laurentian Plateau, Canada. Shows the physiographic divisions and the attitude of the underlying rocks. The steep inclination of the strata is the result of the exaggeration of the vertical. by the Coastal Plain on the southeast and southwest and by scale. the Glaciated Plains on the northwest and extends northeast­ Horizontal scale, 1 inch=30 miles. ward into Canada. Its northwestern boundary is indefinite but Relief. The general region in which the quadrangle is sit­ The Niagara escarpment separates the Huron plain from the may be regarded as coinciding approximately with the southern uated may be regarded as comprising central and western New Ontario plain. It is the most widely extended physiographic limit of Pleistocene glaciation from southern Illinois to north­ York, southern. Ontario, northern Pennsylvania, and north­ feature of the region and may be traced, with few interruptions, eastern Ohio and thence with a line separating the lowland of eastern Ohio. Viewed broadly it consists of a series of ter­ from western New York to northern Illinois. North of Cayuga the lower Great Lakes and St. Lawrence from the upland of races or platforms descending northward from the Allegheny Lake it is hardly distinguishable, but at Rochester it is about western, central, and northern New York. The Glaciated Plateau to Lake Ontario and separated by northward-facing 100 feet high and at Niagara and in southern Ontario it attains Plains extend westward from their southeastern limit thus escarpments. (See fig. 3.) North of Lake Ontario the surface a height of 200 feet. At Hamilton, Ontario, it turns northwest­ defined to the Great Plains and from the Ozark province on rises again to the divide between the drainage basin of the lake ward and extends to the Blue Mountains, south of Georgian the south northward into Canada. and that of Ottawa River. The slope is gradual at first but Bay, where it is more than 800 feet high. It forms the west The Appalachian Plateau is the only one of the several steeper along the border of the Laurentian Plateau. shore of the bay, crosses the Manitoulin Islands, skirts the divisions of the Appalachian province that extends into the The northern part of the Appalachian Plateau is known as north end of Lake Michigan, reappears in the Green Bay , general region in which the Niagara quadrangle is situated. It the Allegheny Plateau. Its surface lies from 1500 to 2000 feet peninsula, and crosses eastern Wisconsin into Illinois, where is a broad dissected upland lying between the Appalachian above sea level along its northern and northwestern margins within a short distance it dies out. .Valley on the east and the lower ground of the Mississippi and gradually rises southward to nearly 2600 feet in southern The Ontario plain extends from the Niagara escarpment basin on the west and extending from the Catskill Mountains New York and to more than 2600 feet in northern Pennsyl­ on the south arid west to the Laurentian Plateau on the north of New York southwestward into northern Alabama. The vania. Toward the east it is rather lower, but it rises to 4200 and the Adirondack highland on the east. Its surface is rather upland surface includes several minor plateaus of somewhat feet in the Catskill Mountains, the highest part of the plateau. diversified, though nearly level in some considerable areas, and a The survey of the Niagara quadrangle for folio publication was begun Its surface is deeply trenched by valleys, the bottoms of the ranges from 250 feet above sea level about Lake Ontario to in 1897 by Gf. K. Gilbert, who partly prepared the maps and illustrations.