572 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



Jabish Brook, next west, ami Swift River seems to liave joined tins brook 

 from out its gorge in the till, with its waters clarified in an ujiper catch- 

 ment basin. The Orange-Enfield basin has thus in a sense an independent 

 history. 



It is, of course, true that the waters swept sands down this broad 

 basin during all the time the ice was melting up it. It is further probable 

 that the final l)odA' of sand was swept into the basin and the final molding 

 and forming of its surface, especially in its northern part, was efteeted 

 when the ice had abandoned it and still clog-ged Millers Kiver lower 

 down than the head of the basin, so as to allow the di-ainage of the upper 

 part of the river to enter this basin at its northeast corner and also to 

 turn back tlie lowei- drainage of the river into the northwest corner of the 

 same broad valley. 



The village of Orange stands at the northwest corner of this area of 

 flat sands and gravels, of which the raih-oad, thence east nearly to Atliol, 4 

 miles, is closelv the northern boundary, and which extends south, with an 

 average width of nearly 2 miles, across New Salem, Gi-eenwich, Prescott, 

 and Enfield, to the gorge ah-eady described (see p 570), by which its waters 

 escaped southwestward. We find the indication of a large and simultane- 

 ous infiux of waters from the northeast and northwest corners very clear. 



The sands are 494 feet above the sea at the railroad station at 

 Orange — about their lowest level. They continue east for a long distance 

 as level, fine sands, and north to the foot of the rocky slopes, where there 

 was no drainage to luring in material. East, within a mile of the Narrows, 

 below Athol, one comes on the face of a great delta (occupied by Millers 

 River) sent out into the plain, terraced on its front at a height of about 30 

 feet above the plain below, but reaching a height of (JO feet at the delta 

 front and rising slightly to the Narrows. On the north the delta extended 

 across the mouth of a small valley, i)onding the waters Joack and forming 

 extensive clay beds, in which the following section was exposed. 



Section in l/rickynril at the Xnrrows, in Athol. 



Feet. 



Thin sands 6 



Bufl' clays 6 



Thill-bedded blue chiys, no bottom seen 6 



On the west the indication of the influx of the waters is equallv clear. 



