514 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



compelled it to cut in the sandstone the French King- gorge' and the canyon 

 of the Lily Pond. 



The river regains its old bed in the passage between Mount Toby and 

 Sugar Loaf, where its fine pre-Glacial rock-cut teiTaces which flank Mount 

 Toby have received the name Sunderland Park, and its course across the 

 Hatfield-Northampton meadows is closely given on PI. XI, p. 510. After 

 its passage through the Holyoke notch its course is uncertain, and there I 

 give two alternatives on the map. 



The reasons favoring the eastern course are that it lies along a line of 

 deep depressions in the broad sand plain, and shows no rock outcrops where 

 erosion has gone deepest. The reasons fa\'oring the other course are that 

 it passes over the borings of the Government surveys of the Connecticut 

 River, one of which went 30 to 40 feet below sea level, and, like the other, 

 is a line where the deepest, erosion discloses no rock. (See "The Spring- 

 field Lake," in Chapter XIX. 



It is certain that between the Holyoke notch and the latitude of 

 Springfield the river ran far east of its present course, because it now 

 cuts tlu-ough rock all the way from Mount Holyoke to the Holyoke Falls. 



The justification for the course given the Deerfield River and the 

 Westfield River has been presented above. An inspection of the map will 

 suggest that the Deei'field River may have run southeast from its ravine 

 through the finely rock-terraced notch between Sugar Loaf and North 

 Sugar Loaf, and that its present notch in this range may have been cut by 

 the Green River, but the drawing on the map represents the most probable 

 status. The Sugar Loaf notch is not deep enough for the Deerfield River, 

 which probably ran south of Sugar Loaf 



The notch which separates Sugar Loaf from North Sugar Loaf is plainly 

 water-formed, and Whately Glen is its most probable upstream continuation 

 among the crystalline rocks, as indicated on the map. 



In the same way the main gap in the center of the Holyoke range, to 

 which the name "Notch" is especially restricted in the valley, was the 

 result of water erosion and was the site of a great waterfall before the 

 Glacial period. It is deeply cut in the trap, with vertical walls, and its 

 continuation in the sandstone immediately south of the trap sinks very 

 suddenly to a much lower level, forming the Orchid Garden, celebrated 

 among botanists. I think this notch was in continuation of the "Freshman 



' See footnote on ])age 296. 



