MODIFIED DRIFT IN OSSIPEE BASIN. 145 



size as could be transported by strong currents of water. These kames 

 are from 25 to 50 feet high, and extend in crooked north and south ridges 

 which are frequently traceable a quarter or a half mile. Large angular 

 boulders are occasionally found embedded in these water-worn deposits. 

 In going westward we find these boulders more numerous ; and the 

 ridges, which become shorter and more irregular, are composed partly 

 or wholly of angular materials. Near the foot of the hills these ridges 

 reach about 100 feet above the railroad, and present the very irregular 

 contour of typical kames, having steep sides and narrow tops, and enclos- 

 ing bowl-shaped hollows ; but they consist entirely of angular debris with 

 no water-worn deposits, and in many places their surface is composed 

 only of boulders with no earth to fill the interspaces. Between these 

 moraines and the true kames seen along the railroad there is a gradual 

 transition, the intervening ridges being partly morainic and partly kame- 

 like in material. 



A considerable area of low alluvium, without ridges, lies east of Madison 

 station, separating this long series of kames from others of coarse water- 

 worn gravel, which occur on the north-east shore of Six-mile pond. Near 

 the head of this pond a similar ridge forms a small crescent-shaped 

 island, concave towards the north. 



Plains in the Basin of Ossipee Lake. 



On the north-west side of Six-mile pond no distinct kames were seen, 

 but deposits of very coarse water-worn gravel, with the largest pebbles 

 one or even two feet in diameter, rise from 25 to 50 feet in irregular 

 slopes. The level plains begin about three fourths of a mile south from 

 Madison station, and the material in the next three miles gradually 

 changes to very fine gravel or sand, so that the railroad cuts at the south 

 end of this distance rarely show pebbles an inch in diameter. These 

 plains occupy a large area in the south-west corner of Madison and the 

 east part of Tamworth, and extend south along Six-mile brook, which 

 separates Freedom and Ossipee, to the north-west side of Ossipee lake. 

 (Plate VI.) Their soil is barren, its natural woody growth being scrub 

 oaks and pitch pines. Their height at the north is about 40 feet above 

 Six-mile pond, which is 456 feet above the sea ; thence they have a 

 slight southward slope of 15 or 20 feet in a mile, descending nearly to 

 VOL. III. 19 



