196 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EVIDENCES OF GLACIAL ACTION IN SOUTH- 

 EASTERN CONNECTICUT. 



By Hon. DAVID A. WELLS. 



EEMARKABLE evidences of glacial action in southeastern 

 Connecticut seem thus far to have almost entirely escaped 

 the attention of geologists. In fact, the most superficial survey 

 of the section of country bordering on Long Island and Fisher's 

 Island Sounds, and extending from Connecticut River on the 

 west to Watch Hill, and perhaps to a point farther east, in Rhode 

 Island, can hardly fail to produce a conviction that it was in 

 this region that one, at least, of the great New England glaciers 

 debouched into the waters of the Atlantic ; unloading or drop- 



FlG. 1. 



ping, as its progress was arrested by the ocean, or as it subse- 

 quently gradually wasted and receded by change of climate, a 

 vast multitude of bowlders, of which a very large proportion are 

 of uncommon magnitude. There would also seem some reasons 

 for believing that the central or medium line of this glacier is 

 now indicated by the course of the so-called Thames River — 

 which is more properly an arm of the sea rather than a river — 



