The History of Cayuga County 1789-1879 page 37
Topography of the Towns

highest points, except near its shores, along which extends a steep bluff.

In Ledyard from its eastern boundary, where it rises about 500 feet above the lake, the land gradually declines to its shores. Numerous small streams flow through it into the lake.

In Venice are deep valleys running north and south, near the center of the town, and through which the Big and Little Salmon Creeks flow. Its highest summits rise from 300 to 400 feet above Owasco Lake. Its general surface is a rolling upland, but on the lake and the west bank of Salmon Creek the declivities are abrupt.

Fleming has a northerly and easterly inclination sloping towards the lake for three-fourths of a mile with a rolling surface, easily cultivated. Its ridges run north and south, and rise from 150 to 250 feet above the lake.

Springport rises gradually from Cayuga Lake, to an elevation between 400 and 500 feet, with a generally plane or moderately rolling surface

Such is the general topography of the twelve towns lying south of the city of Auburn. We will now present the topography of the northern towns of the County, with some contrasts between them and the southern towns.

Lake Ontario, on the northern border, is 232 feet above tidewater, and 155 feet lower than the surface of Cayuga Lake.

The highest ridges in the town of Sterling, rise 200 feet above the lake, and are therefore 532 feet above tide, or about 1200 feet below the highest elevation in the County in the town of Sempronius ; and 350 feet below the table lands of Scipio. Sterling has a slight northerly inclination, and its streams flow into the Little and Big Sodus Bays. Courtright Brook and Little Sodus Creek are the principal streams. Little Sodus Bay is two miles long and one mile wide, and furnishes one of the finest harbors on the shore of the lake. The water is of ample depth, it is thoroughly land-locked by the high lands on three sides, and its entrance has been improved by liberal appropriations by the general government. It is elsewhere fully described.*

East of the bay is a large swamp, embracing several hundred acres, and also another in the south part of the town. Some parts of the town are exceedingly stony and difficult of cultivation.

The surface of the town of Victory is but moderately uneven, the hills not exceeding fifty feet in height. In the south-west part is a large swamp. As in Sterling, so in this town, some parts of it are very stony.

In Ira, also, the surface is gently undulating, the hills rising from fifty to seventy-five feet above the valleys.

Cato has no elevation exceeding fifty feet above the valleys, and not above two hundred feet above Lake Ontario. Seneca River bounds the town on the south, along which the land is flat and subject to overflow. Cross Lake is a body of shallow water, five miles long by one broad, into, and from which, the Seneca River flows. Otter Lake is about two miles long and Parker's Pond, of circular form, is about one mile in diameter, the outlets from both, flowing into Seneca River. Along the river, in this town, the ground is low and swampy and subject to inundation. That part of the town of Conquest which borders upon Seneca River, is low and swampy and subject to overflow, and a swamp about eighty rods wide extends from the river through the town.

Duck Lake, in the north-west part of the town, is about one mile in diameter. The general surface of the town is rolling upland. Howland's Island, in the south-west corner of the town, formed by a branch of Seneca River which surrounds two thousand seven hundred acres, was owned by Humphrey Howland, and descended to his son Penn. It has now passed into other hands. Nearly one-third of its exterior surface bordering the river is low and swampy and the balance rolling and fine upland.

The north-western and northern parts of Brutus are level, rising but a few feet above the level of Seneca River, by which considerable portions are overflowed. It is exceedingly rich and productive. In the southern and south-eastern parts rise frequent and very fertile drift-hills, from fifty to seventy-five feet above the general surface. Cold Spring Brook, in the western part of the town, rising in the Tyler Spring in Auburn, and Bread, or Putnam Brook, flowing centrally through the town, and having its head-waters in the town of Owasco, are the principal streams; the latter is a canal feeder, and both empty into the Seneca River.

That part of the town of Mentz, which lies upon the Seneca River is low and more or less swampy; in the south rise fertile drift-ridges.

*See History Town of Sterling.

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