116 OLD RIVER BED. 



the water removed the major part of the bank, and carried it into the morass. Hence the hitherto unprof- 

 itable hill has now become levelled down to a handsome meadow, ready to yield its fruit in its season. 

 This is an example worthy of imitation, which will no doubt be followed when the intelligent people 

 of the State shall have had the plan suggested to them. Indeed, so happy a thought has entered more 

 than one mind already. When in Rochester ia 1858, we heard of a person there who had been doing the 

 same thing upon his farm. Perhaps it would hardly be advisable to enlarge upon this topic, lest the 

 inhabitants of the terraced villages throughout the State should take it into their heads to remove all the 

 terraces in this way. That process would not be desired by geologists, or others, who would then miss one 

 source of the beauty of the landscape. The future geologist in such a country, where the terraces had all 

 been worn down in this way, might find a great many old shores, or beaches. For he would find water- 

 worn materials of great thickness, sloping towards the rivers, and he would reason that they must have 

 been made by waves quietly washing the shores of a lake, or something of that sort. 



But we must return to the sixteenth basin. After passing the mouth of the Passumpsic, a few small 

 terraces are seen as far as Waterford. Here at the limit of the basin, there are three terraces on both sides 

 of the river, wider and finer than any others above Stevens Village ; which give place to two old beaches or 

 shores. Near this point we find that the Connecticut changes its north and south course, first running west, 

 and then southwest, as we advance up the stream. The straight course we have been pursuing, in our 

 scientific journey, would carry us into the valley of the Passumpsic. The twenty miles falls or rapids com- 

 mence a short distance before we reach the limit of the sixteenth basin, and within this area the seventeenth 

 basin is located. About ten miles of this territory has not been examined ; but from indications observed 

 at both ends of the terra incognita, it was presumed to be a country very deficient in terraces. Occasion- 

 ally a few appear, as at the bridge between Waterford and Littleton, New Hampshire and over a part of 

 the distance there may be an imperfect kind of a beach. We would hazard a conjecture concerning the 

 cause of this deficiency of terraces and terrace materials along this interval, while below, at Wells River, 

 and above, at Lunenburg (upper part) and Guildhall, they are so abundant. We would conjecture that 

 the Connecticut formerly left its present bed a little below Lancaster, N. H.. then passed to Whitefield over 

 the summit level, across two ponds of water, into the valley of the Lower Amonoosuc River to Littleton, 

 and followed that stream down to the mouth of ^Wells River, where it entered its present bed. We would 

 present the reasons for this belief : 



1st. It would be a more direct route for the Connecticut than the present. To be sure, rivers do not 

 seem to be very particular as to the route they take in threading their way among the hills ; but, as for all 

 the rest of its course in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, it is comparatively straight, there is 

 some reason to think that a straight course for the rest of the way would have been the most natural. This 

 straight course has generally been determined by the eastern limit of one of the rock formations, an easily 

 decomposing rock. Now on its present route the rock is different in its character, being tough breccia or 

 talcose schist instead of calciferous mica schist. On the Amonoosuc route the rock is mainly granite, 

 which is easier to decompose than the talcose schist. This route would have saved six miles, at least. 



2d. The character of the terraces along the two routes, and above and below the ends of the supposed 

 bed. Below Wells River, the terraces are remarkably fine so they are above Lunenburg while between 

 Lunenburg and Wells River on the Connecticut, they are very poor below the mouth of the Passumpsic, 

 and above that point are generally entirely wanting. Upon the Amonoosuc River they are well devel- 

 oped. Hence it seems more natural to suppose that a continuous set of fine terraces was formed by the 

 same stream, when that stream had the power to produce such brilliant effects as the Connecticut does, 

 than to suppose the contrary. The fact that from Wells River to Stevens Village (Barnet) there are some 

 terraces, and none of any consequence above it, except on the Passumpsic River, would seem to indicate 

 that the Passumpsic was the main producer of the terraces above Wells River, and that the Connecticut 

 changed its course so recently its to have had little effect upon the formation of terraces there. 



