184 



the town. Its height docs not exceed 125 feet, and it rises less 

 than (50 feet above the bordering sandplains. Nutty Hill? 

 southwest liom Great Hill, is a good example of a drumlin 

 more than half buried in the sandplain. Southwest of the 

 Turkey Hills is an extended area of elevated rocky woodland? 

 lying partly in Iliiighani and partly in Cohasset, a singularly 

 well-[)rescrved section of the ancient peneplain. But, to the 

 west of this tract, in the valley of Weir River, before we come 

 to Prospect Hill, on the east side of the river and just beyond 

 the southern border of the map, several rather inconspicuous 

 drundins have been observed. Prospect Hill is well named ; 

 for it is one of the largest drumlins in the Boston Basin, the 

 highest point in Hingham (218 feet) ; and affords a wide 

 prospect in all directions. The general map gives the position, 

 form, size, trend, and, so far as known, the height of every 

 recognized drundin in the area which it represents.^ 



The I'ock surface of Hingham is masked not only by the 

 drumlins, but much more by the modified drift, which is far 

 more abundant than in Hull and Cohasset and is broadly 

 developed in level plains as well as in rounded knolls or 

 kames and winding ridges or eskers. Although the more or 

 •less continuous plains of sand and gravel occurring at different 

 and increasing heights from the shore southward tend, as in 

 Cohasset, to emphasize the plateau character of the peneplain, 

 they also give a broadly step-like or terrace form to the topog- 

 raphy in which the hard rocks certainly do not share. Some 

 of these plains gained early recognition, as witness the names 



'Tlie elevations in northern Hull, including Peddock's and Jiittle Hor;; Islands, were 

 taken, by j<erniission, from the unpuldished charts of the Ilarlior Coinnii.s,sioiier9; while 

 those in southern Hull, iiicludinj;' Biinikin and Grape Islands, were measured witli a 

 hand-level, by the author. The chief elevations in Hingham and Cohasset, including 

 nearly all those conveniently near the sea or salt marshes, were very accurately deter- 

 mined by levelling through the kindness of Mr. A. E. Woodward, Mr. Cyrus C. Babb, 

 and Mr. II. VV. Nichols, formerly students of civil engineering in the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technolog}' ; ami, finally, the elevations in southern Hingham and Colias- 

 set have been, for the most part, determined barometrically by the author, with the 

 assistance of Mr. Nichols, 



