THE HINSDALE AllEA. 21 



From the Washington station the older gneiss narrows and occnjjies 

 the sides and bottom of the narrow canyon, which continnes toward Becket 

 station. The canyon, caused by the projection of this narrow h)be of the 

 olih'r rocks, is one of the most curions and interesting topographic features 

 of the region. The lesser capacity of resistance to erosion of the older 

 gneisses and limestones has caused the broad depression in whicli Hinsdale 

 lies, and tlie southward projection of the same rocks has determined the 

 long, narrow canyon in which tlie waters of the Westtield River, gathering 

 in Washington, flow southward, tluis providing the only chance for railway 

 connnunication between the Connecticut and Housatonic valleys. At 

 Becket station, south of the river, everything is newer gneiss. Just north, 

 in the village, appear the liornblende beds of the upper Algonkian Ijand, and 

 following the road north to the pasture overlooking the village, one 

 finds abundant outcrops of the blue-quartz gneiss and the contact on the 

 conglomerate-gneiss striking southeast and dipping northeast — that is, in 

 the normal relation to each other. This allows them — the older gneisses — 

 to appear in a band on the north side of the brook, which band seems to 

 contract and come to its apex just at the point wdiere the railroad enters 

 Middlefield, so that thence southeastward it appeai-s to be wdiolh' wanting 

 at the surface, or is perhaps only concealed in the bed of the river. It 

 however makes its presence below manifest bj' a continuation eastward along 

 the river of the overturned anticline without the core of exposed Algonkian, 

 initil, at the junction of Coles Brook with the river, the Algonkian chon- 

 drodite-limestone, accompanied by heavy dark gneiss, buckles irregularly 

 up through the conglomerate-gneisses. 



THE COLES BROOK ANTICLINE. 



Just a mile northwest of Bancroft station, Middlefield, the Boston and 

 Albany Railroad cuts off a loop of the Westfield River, and Coles Brook 

 enters this loop. The railroad runs in a deep cut a long distance before 

 reaching this loop, and the cut continues through the loop and most of the 

 way to the station. At bridge 143 the Cambrian white or conglomerate 

 gneiss in synclinal ^losture mounts up on the older gneiss, which I have 

 i-alled the East Lee or black gneiss from its large development just above 

 the limestone in the Lee-Tyringham region. It is especially contorted 

 and cut by pegmatite at the junction, and consists of a great thickness of a 



