HO W THE SOIL CAME. ' 5 I 



broad river bed when the ice had been melted from 

 beneath. 



One can easily see upon the map or upon the land 

 that an eddy or corner must have been made by the edge 

 of the rock along the north side of what is now the 

 Albert S. Bigelow estate, and by the ice which lay in 

 Little Harbor. In this angle were lodged thousands of 

 tons of gravel by the stream as it swept around over what 

 is now the town Common, past the ledge at Depot Court, 

 and thence into the Cove. That the ice really did lay in 

 Little Harbor, reaching a hundred feet or more in height, 

 is proved by the great steepness of the banks of gravel in 

 some places along the margin. Gravel cannot be made 

 any steeper than it is just at the roadside in front of 

 Albert S. Bigelow's estate. If it had been heaped up 

 against a perpendicular wall more than fifty feet high and 

 then the wall were taken away carefully, that gravel bank 

 along the Ridges would not be steeper than it is now. 



The stealthy melting away of a wall of ice is the only 

 explanation that Professor Crosby entertains for this 

 gravel ridge. A similar explanation must be given for 

 the steep point at the edge of Charles S. Bates' estate 

 and for the other banks between. 



This story is still further corroborated by the punch 

 bowls that are formed in the soil in this vicinity. 



The Punch Bowl proper is in the yard of James H. 

 Nichols, at the head of Beach Street. It is a basin 117 

 feet across, nearly round, and fifteen feet deep. It is a 

 beautiful specimen of the work of a glacial stream in 

 heaping gravel around a huge block of ice so that when 

 the ice melts away the dirt caves in to form a gigantic 

 basin. 



Meeting-house Pond is another such bowl, where a 

 stubborn fragment of ice long stood resisting the genial 

 sun. Farther up the stream in this long angle or eddy 

 there were many more islands of ice, where now are Bates 



