MODIFIED DRIFT ALONG CONNECTICUT RIVER. 4 1 



tributary alluvium for two miles south from Ouechee river, and for one 

 mile south from Lull's brook. A level-topped delta, on both sides of the 

 latter at its opening into the main valley just south of Hartland village, 

 is 320 feet above the river, which is less than a mile distant. This high 

 delta is terminated by a steep slope of from 25 to 40 feet, below which, at 

 the south, there is no line of separation between the additions from this 

 brook and the ordinary highest terrace ; but the whole shows an irregular 

 surface of smoothly rounded hills and hollows, formed by small streams. 

 Similar erosion has taken place west of North Hartland. This cause has 

 frequently destroyed the true shape of these high plains, originally level, 

 and bounded by a steep escarpment ; instead of which we now find slop- 

 ing buttresses, ravines, and scattered knolls and ridges, in a confusion 

 quite opposite to the beautiful system and regular form of the terraces. 



In Lebanon and Cornish steep hills of till or ledge come quite to the 

 river at the lower descent of White River falls and opposite Windsor 

 village ; in Plainfield the hill comes near the river at Sumner's falls, and 

 opposite Hartland village the alluvium is thus reduced to a very narrow 

 strip for a mile. No very broad development of modified drift occurs in 

 either of these towns. Of the original high plain we find only scanty 

 remnants; the intermediate terraces are present, but as usual of small 

 width ; of the lowest terrace we have at the mouth of Mascomy river the 

 largest expanse that occurs in the twenty-four miles along which the 

 kame remains, but this comprises only about half a square mile, and it is 

 mostly above the reach of high water. 



The readiness with which the fine, loose modified drift may be chan- 

 nelled out by rivulets or springs is often shown by long, deep gullies 

 extending from the edge of a terrace directly across some field, whose 

 level surface was never before marked by any water-course or hollow. 

 Such a gully, fifteen rods long, two to four rods wide, and fifty feet deep, 

 has recently been made in a terrace 100 feet above the river, at a point 

 two miles south of West Lebanon, on the east side of the river road, 

 which was undermined and turned aside by it. 



Dimes. Near the south line of Lebanon, east of Sumner's falls in 

 Plainfield, and at several places in Cornish, we find banks of sand, or 

 dunes, destitute of vegetation, and blown in drifts by the wind. These 

 vary in height from a few feet to 100 feet above the highest terrace, from 



VOL. III. 6 



