Topographical Features of the New Saren region. 75 



flow, as it spread in that direction around what was Snake Rock head- 

 land, rapidly lost its force ; and finally, when fairly in the Quinnipiac 

 basin, as the beds of fine clayey sand show, there were intervals of 

 comparative quiet or of only gentle movements. The fact of these gen- 

 tle movements is proved not merely by the fineness of these beds, 

 but also by a very delicate contorted lamination in tliem, which in 

 some places looks as if due to the smallest of eddyings in the water at 

 the time of deposition ; and also by successions of obliquely-laminated 

 layers of sand only one or two inches thick, constituting here and there 

 an overlying bed. Where layers of stones, or thick obliquely-lamin. 

 ated sand-beds, exist between these clayey beds, they indicate that a 

 time of rougher movements intervened. 



(2.) Since the slope in the oblique lamination throughout the lower 

 division of the alluvium dips to the southward, or rises to the north- 

 ward (§ e), the deposition of these beds took place under the action of 

 a tidal current flowing northward, that is, into the old Quinnipiac har- 

 bor ; and the reverse direction of the lamination in the upper division 

 implies a current during its formation to the southward, <:«crt?/ /rom 

 the old harbor, or toward the present hay. 



Such a change of current (A) would have attended the flow and 

 ebb of each tide. But this cause of the transition in the beds would 

 make the whole deposition a twelve-hour operation ; which, even with 

 a melting glacier above to supply material, would have been incredi- 

 bly quick work. It might (B) have proceeded from a change in the 

 place of discharge of the Quinnipiac waters, such as would have 

 added the river current to the ebbing tide. But there is no evidence 

 in favor of this in the existence of an old channel, and much against 

 it, in the character of the layers along the present channel north of 

 Fair Haven. It might (C) have resulted from the setting in of an ex- 

 traordinary river flood, giving great force and volume to the out- 

 flowing tide, and not only along the proper channel of the stream, but 

 far and wide over the low lands adjoining. Through such means the 

 action of the incoming tide would have been as much weakened as 

 that of the ebb enhanced ; and, as a consequence, the oblique lam. 

 ination of the sands would have been produced by the outflowing 

 flood The special influence of the Quinnipiac flood would have dimin- 

 ished westward, where finally it would have encountered a similar 

 though smaller. Mill river flood; and hence it is natural that the 

 alluvium should here lose its Quinnipiac characteristic and take that 

 of the other stream, as stated in the closing part of (§ e). It might 

 (D), if a flood were in progress, have been due to the fact that the 



