MODIFIED DRIFT ALONG MERRIMACK RIVER. 85 



just below the mouth of Soucook river, exposed by railroad excavation on 

 both sides of the Merrimack. The kame here cut through by this river 

 is a portion of a series Vv'hich extends twenty miles from Loudon to Man- 

 chester. 



In materials, arrangement, and stratification this principal line of kames 

 in central New Hampshire is like the short scries just described, but un- 

 like the long single kame of the Connecticut valley. The greater part of 

 these kames is of very coarse, water-worn gravel, with pebbles six inches 

 to two feet in diameter, disposed in irregular ridges from 40 to 100 feet 

 in height, of southerly trend parallel with the valley, a section of which 

 usually shows an indistinct stratification. This, however, varies occasion- 

 ally to coarse angular materials, mainly consisting of unworn rock-frag- 

 ments up to four or five feet in size, with no evidence of water action, 

 A mile south of the Pinnacle in Hooksett a gradual transition is seen 

 from water-worn gravel to this morainic material, which continues about 

 a sixth of a mile and then changes back to modified drift, the whole form- 

 ing a continuous ridge. Other portions of these kames contain consider- 

 able amounts of sand or fine gravel, alternating in irregular layers with 

 the common coarse gravel, thus showing very well marked stratification, 

 which is always inclined, being usually anticlinal or arched in the section 

 of a ridge. 



* This Merrimack series differs notably from that of the Connecticut in 

 being frequently composed of several ridges, nearly parallel to each other, 

 with long irregular hollows between them which sometimes contain ponds. 

 About half is thus made up of two or more parallel ridges, while the other 

 half, in separate portions of a mile or two each, consists of a single ridge. 

 Upon the Soucook river these kames are repeatedly cut through by its 

 jDresent channel, as also near its mouth by the Merrimack, but in the 

 fourteen miles farther south they lie wholly on the west side of the 

 Merrimack, often near the edge of its alluvial area. 



The north end of this series has not been fully examined. Its first 

 appearance noted is on Pine brook, half a mile west of Loudon village, 

 where north-west to south-east ridges of coarse gravel occur. They were 

 also seen on the south-west side of Soucook river, near the first bridge 

 below this village ; thence they probably occur near the river southward, 

 but have not been explored for the next mile and a half, to near Richard- 



