New York's New Finger Lake, Part Two

This posting will later be joined to Part One, on the glacier blog www.markmeek.blogspot.com , and the title will be changed to "Lakes" plural.

In Part One, I explained that the well-known canyon in western New York State's Letchworth State Park was certainly not carved by the Genesee River flowing through it, but was formed by glacial ice in the same way as the Finger Lakes to the east. I would like to add two nearby valleys to that category, being formed in the same way as the Finger Lakes.

Here is a map link, where both can be seen: www.maps.google.com .

These lakes and valleys were formed by the southward movement of glacial ice during the ice ages, which was concentrated across central New York State between the Niagara Escarpment in the west and the Adirondack Mountains to the east. Aside from the lakes themselves, I am pointing out that there were also valleys formed which did not fill with water.

There is a broad and steep-sided valley, from Pavilion in the north to the town of Warsaw in the south. The outline of this valley can easily be seen in the satellite imagery. Route 19 runs along this valley. Notice how it is exactly parallel to the canyon at Letchworth State Park, which was described in Part One.

There is another such valley that can be seen as extending through Carlton Hill State Forest. This is aligned perfectly to have been formed in the same way as the Finger Lakes.


(Note-I do want to make one comment about this area. Part of the lore around here is a series of brutal murders that took place in the early Twentieth Century, which were never solved. Certainly not what would be expected of such an idyllic rural area. I heard about these murders while doing sales work in the area, some years ago. I think there were seven such murders from 1917-1935.

The victims were all killed by multiple extreme impacts to the head, and the houses were set ablaze in two of the murders which took place in houses. Carlton Hill State Forest is just south of where four of the murders happened, which are collectively known as The Linden Murders.

Of course such events are going to be part of the history of the area. But we have to be careful with continuing to tell this story. Look at what happened on Christmas Eve, 2012, just east of Rochester. William Spengler killed his sister with, I believe, an impact to the head. He set the home on fire, and then shot arriving firefighters. He had originally gone to prison for killing his grandmother with multiple impacts to the head.

I did not read it on the news, but this is just like something out of the Linden Murders. Spengler was old enough to have heard stories of the murders, and he committed his in exactly the same way).