AN DOVER AND HAVERHILL SERIES OF KAMES. 1 6/ 



of Astarte castanca at Kittery is proof that the ocean became as warm 

 as now before it sank to its present level. 



Kames in the South Part of Rockingham County and in North- 

 eastern Massachusetts. 



This district contains very interesting and instructive series of kames, 

 which differ from those described along the Connecticut and Merrimack 

 rivers, and in the basin of Ossipee lake. It will be remembered that 

 those series lie along the middle and lowest portion of valleys. The 

 series of kames now to be considered do not follow the present water- 

 courses, but run directly across the Merrimack and other rivers, which 

 here have no well marked valleys, being not much lower than the hollows 

 between the hills on either side. Occupying these hollows or lying 

 against the side of the hills, the kames extend long distances in a some- 

 what devious, but for the whole series, quite straight course, which is 

 about half-way between south and south-east. 



Rev. George F. Wright, of Andover, Mass., has given much attention 

 to the surface geology of this district, and has kindly supplied the follow- 

 ing description of these kames : * 



A formation of gravel, known at Andover as "Indian Ridge," has long been familiar 

 to the citizens, and has been remarked upon frequently by tourists and geologists. We 

 could not improve the description of the main features of similar formations given 

 by Dr. Edward Hitchcock in 1842.! He writes, — "Our moraines form ridges and hills 

 of almost every possible shape. It is not common to find straight ridges for a consid- 

 erable distance. But the most common and most remarkable aspect assumed by these 

 elevations is that of a collection of tortuous ridges and rounded and even conical hills, 

 with corresponding depressions between them. These depressions are ^not valleys 

 which might have been produced by running water, but mere holes, not unfrequently 

 occupied by a pond." 



By reference to Map i, Plate IV, the characteristics of this formation may easily be 

 apprehended. At the flax mills near Andover depot, a dam raises the Shawshin river 

 14 feet. Measuring from the river-bed below the dam, the ascent to the peat-bog, 0, 

 at the base of the east ridge, is 41 feet. Taking this bog as a level, the heights of the 

 successive ridges, — East ridge, Indian, and West, — at the points a, b, and c, are 41 feet, 

 49 feet, and 71 feet. The point c, however, is in a characteristic depression of the 



* For some further particulars and facts bearing on the origin of these series of kames, see a paper by Rev. Mr. 

 Wright in Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History , vol. xix, pp. 47-63. 

 t Transactions of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 



