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History of Orange County
Town of New Windsor
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This fact, and the general appearance and physical character of the locality of which we speak are well calculated to excite our wonder and laudable curiosity, and instinctively lead us to inquire, when was this deposit of sand, clay, gravel and bone made, and what the mighty agent that transported them there. We are no geologist, and express no opinion on the subject, a will only refer to a theory which is supposed to solve the interesting fact, upon which we express our doubts, and leave the matter to those who are better informed. We ought to have stated that the high banks at the village of New Windsor at other places between that and Butter Hill, are of clean pure clay, out of which a fine quality of brick is made.
The theory referred to, is, that this magnificent valley was once a lake, and that the deposits we speak of, were made by its agency.
Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, late of New York, dec'd., celebrated as a physician and for extensive philosophical information remarks in his appendix to the American Edition of Cuvier's Theorie, page 365, “that the Highlands formed the southern barrier of a great lake whose waters were discharged by the opening through which the Hudson river passes. If this was ever true, not only the southern portion of New York but a large part of Pennsylvania, indeed the whole country from the Hudson to Harrisburgh, extending many miles north, must have been covered by this lake. That the passage through the Highlands should have been made by the great pressure of the waters of this lake, we suppose they rose to near the top Butter Hill, otherwise there would not have been sufficient power to produce the rapture. The hight Butter Hill is 1500 feet; we must also suppose that the whole of the southern barrier of the lake, extending the distance mentioned, was as high or nearly so, else the waters would have ran off at the parts lower than Butter Hill. This circular range of mountains is known in New Jersey as the Kittatany, in Virginia as the Powhatan range, in honor of Pocahontas, the celebrated Indian Princess, of which the Highlands are a part running out in this direction. Now the Susquehannah runs through an opening of this mountain circle a rim of the lake, in the vicinity of Harrisburgh where the mountain is not half as high as Butter Hill. The waters of the take therefore at West Point could not have risen with in 800 feet the summit of the Highlands, and the pressure wholly inadequate to rupture the solid mass of Butter Hill.- This statement we think presents the theory as futile and visionary, and precludes the formation of a lake as intimated by the theory. There are several rivers which pass through gaps in this mountain range, the James, Potomac, Susquehannah, Schuylkill, Delaware and Hudson. All these rivers were in the same confined and pent up condition at the time of which we speak, and when this lake rolled its inland waves over this country. Now we ask the friends of this hypothesis, did these six rivers at the same instant burst the southern barrier of the lake and vent themselves through the several ruptured gorges of the mountain, where we now find them running? They must have done so, otherwise the prostration of the stony barrier at one locality would have permitted the water to escape, and there would have been no physical cause or necessity for the other five. These several ruptures seem to he necessary to support the theory in question, but, with our present limited knowledge of geology and physical geography, we give them no credence, nor believe in that simultaneous rush of water.
In addition we might ask, where was the outlet of the lake when the six rivers we have mentioned, poured their daily and yearly tributes into it, and before the rupture at the Highlands or other places. It cannot be that these rivers ran the basin full and then the rupture instantly followed. No; if they ran before the event referred to, they ran for many years and flooded the granite rim of the mighty bowl.- Evaporation would not have consumed the waters, as it does not in the northern lakes, where they are passed off by way of the St. Lawrence.
The tide in the Hudson flows 170 miles to still water, and the hight of land on the northern canal between tide-water and Lake Champlain is only 115 feet above tide; from which it follows, the contents of the great lake it question, could and would have been drained off in that direction, and by way of the St. Lawrence before they rose with in 1000 feet of the altitude of Butter Hill. These splendid theories must have been entertained without a knowledge of the mountain altitudes and true configuration of this portion of the continent. Upon hypothesis referred to, the Ohio river by some great natural convulsion, broke through the Silver Hills below Louisville, and drained a large lake which laid to the north above them. The Natural Bridge of Rockbridge county, in Virginia, is thought to have been the result of some great internal convulsion of the earth, by which the mountain was rent asunder. But we conceive we have said sufficient to satisfy the reader that the true causes for the present passages of the several rivers named, have not been as signed, if there ever were any, since the day the globe was finished.
We might further remark, that Butter Hill furnishes no evidence of being ruptured. Her side next the water, and the same may be said of the mountain below and on the opposite side of the river, is smooth and regularly rounded. A violent rupture by any means would have left these rough jagged and angular, which appearance they would have preserved to this day, whatever the date of the event. They could not have been rounded and smoothed off as they now appear by the action of water, which would instantly have sunk never to rise again.
Besides this, the river here is about 60 feet deep below the base of the mountain; what power except that of the Almighty could have broken down a barrier of such width and depth? An inspection of the locality contradicts and disproves the truth of the hypothesis.