Green River. 137 



length, the banks on either side of the rivers, would be worn down 

 and removed for a considerable extent. In other words, such basins 

 as now exist at Deerfield and Westfield, would be produced ; less 

 deep, however, and destitute of terraces. As this basin enlarged, 

 another process would commence. While the stream was confined 

 within narrow limits, the alluvial matter, brought down from the 

 mountains, would be carried along to the Connecticut. But as the 

 basin enlarged, the water, when swollen by rains and melting snows, 

 would spread over it, and becoming more calm, would deposit the 

 mud and sand in suspension. Thus the new formed basin would be 

 gradually filling up, and form an alluvial meadow. But as the bed 

 of the river would continue to sink, ere long the waters would rar-ely 

 rise high enough to overflow the meadows : and for the same reason 

 they could never be raised by alluvial deposition to the level of the 

 plain through which the river first began to flow. The banks of the 

 river having now become high, the waters would again commence 

 their depredations upon them, and scoop out a second basin from the 

 meadows just described. At length all these meadows would be car- 

 ried away by the stream, except occasional patches, which would 

 form a terrace around their margin. The second basin, having now 

 become large enough to enable the overflowing waters to "begin to 

 deposite their mud and sand, a second meadow would be formed, 

 which would go on rising and the river sinking, until the floods could 

 no longer spread over them ; when a third basin would be formed ; 

 and so on, as long as the river continued to excavate its bed. 



I have confined this illustration to the basins of Westfield and 

 Deerfield rivers, in order to render it more intelligible. But it can 

 easily be applied to the Connecticut, or any other river. 



Green River. 



A hundred rods south of the village of Greenfield, on the stage 

 road to Deerfield, Green River, a tributary of the Deerfield, has left 

 indelible traces of having once run in a channel 40 or 50 feet above 

 its present bed. At that elevation, a ledge of sandstone rocks bears 

 the marks of having been once the bed of the stream, as distinctly 

 as if it had run there but yesterday. The w r ater here formed a cata- 

 ract, 20 or 30 feet high ; and below the ledge, a chasm, nearly as 

 wide as the present bed of the river, is worn in the rock several rods 

 long, which communicates with the present channel. The ~pot holes 

 left in the ledge of rock are some of them 6 or 7 feet deep, and one 

 18 



