570 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



Palmer Center and then along south of Mount Dumpling, directly into the 

 Ellis Mills Pass, forming the deep channel cut in the sands along this line, 

 which is in places worn down to the till. This channel remains practically 

 intact for a long distance north and south of Palmer Center. 



With the melting of the ice back to b^ the lower reaches of the Swift 

 River Valle}' were set free, the Ware River passed out tlu-ough the 

 gorge at Tliorndvke instead of by way of Palmer Center, and the Ellis 

 Mills drainage was fully established. That portion of b^ abutting on 

 Mount Dumpling is a massive moraine, but the ice front seems soon to 

 have extended more nearly north and south, between the portion repre- 

 sented east of Bonds village and the part south of Three Rivers. The new 

 level thus established by the Ellis Mills Pass of 390 to 400 feet is manifest 

 in terraces (1 s) rising from that level as one goes east up the Quaboag or 

 the Monson Brook. The broad sands of Ware Valley hardly rise above 

 500 feet, as they are followed northeast far beyond the limits of the map, 

 and from them a lobe extends northward up Beaver Brook and past its 

 headwaters, to connect with the broad Orange-Enfield sands. 



A striking proof of the contention on page 569, that the earlier East 

 Palmer-Monson lake beds did not fill the northern half of the Monson 

 Valley and that the waters were at this later time held uj) to the 400-foot 

 level in the empty valley, is found in the perfectly formed sand spit at the 

 400-foot level which projects westward halfway across the mouth of the 

 Monson Valley just south of Quaboag. This has just the form which 

 would result from the passage of the main current west past the slack 

 water still standing in the Monson Valley to the south. 



The Swift River, for a long way above Bonds village, runs now in a 

 deep and naiTOw valley cut in the till, liut high up on its side are the broad 

 sands rising to 400 feet which Ijelong to the series under consideration. 

 On following these sands eastward to the point where the Central Railroad 

 crosses the ice barrier (b"), one sees that they sink by a sudden irregular 

 slope 30 feet, down to the level of the Belchertown sands, along the line 

 where they were supported by the ice of this barrier. These sands may 

 . be traced a long way north, following, at a level high abo^"e the present 

 stream, the West Branch of the Swift River, and branching with the 

 stream at Enfield to blend with the exten.sive Orange-Enfield sands. The 

 main stream of Swift River here passes through a remarkable gorge cut 



