TOPOGEAPHY. 1 1 



Spriuii-ficld basin, wliile its steej) western slope is the eastern boundary of a 

 lateral valle}', similar in size and position to the Deerfield Valley, of which, 

 indeed, it may be looked upon as tlie continuation, and this valley extends 

 across Southampton and Southwick and, as the Farmington Valley, is con- 

 tinuous to the .Sound. 



The Springfield basin is also continued beyond the limits of the State, 

 and, though conti'acted at the Enfield Falls, is not terminated imtil it readies 

 the narrows at Middletown, Connecticut. 



On the east the longitudinal valleys, especially the Enfield Valley, are 

 largely due to the folding of bands of newer and harder schists down into 

 the gneiss and the subsequent deeper erosion of the latter. On the Avest, 

 where the whole area is occupied by closely folded schists, one can oidy 

 rarely see any connection between the valleys and the durability of the 

 bottom rocks. 



The topography of the northwest portion of Franklin Count}^ is, how- 

 ever, very plainly influenced by its stratigraphy. The Deerfield River, on 

 entering the State, runs southward with the strike of the Hoosac schist. It 

 then bends and cuts aci'oss this strike at right angles, and then turns south- 

 west again with the strike, and repeats this zigzag several times, and at 

 last, reaching the great fault at the portal, it turns sharply east across the 

 sericite-schists. All the orographic lines in Rowe — the mountain ridges and 

 the intervening valleys — are for the same reason directed southwest, par- 

 allel to the abnormal strike of the rocks thereabout. The deep dej^ression 

 in which Shelburne Falls lies is plainly the result of the great quaquaversal 

 by which the gneiss is here exposed, and is the expression of its lesser 

 durability. 



Across the western half of Hampshire and Ham])den counties the 

 drainage is southeast, and is only in a minor degree controlled liy the north- 

 south structure of the rocks. The east branch of the Westfield River flows 

 from Cummington S(iuth to its mouth with the strike, curving around the 

 Goshen anticline, and its gorge above West Chesterfield Hollow and the 

 gorge of the Westfield Little River are the wildest in the State. 



