626 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUIs^TY, MASS. 



A "dry lirook" has cut, its notch part way across this pUiiu, just west 

 of the raih-oad, trying ineffectually to replace the river, and the contours 

 on the north slope of the plain bend south toward the brook gorge. 



Millers River, emerging from its portal in the eastern rock border of 

 the valley, makes almost inunediately a remarkable curve, turning first 

 south and then 180° round through west to north, and then runs north, 

 skirting the Mine Hill ridge, to meet the "dry brook," and then with sharp 

 western turn it cuts through this ridge to join the Connecticut. 



This is one of the most beautiful spots in the State. The Connecticut 

 comes down from the north in its vertical-walled canyon, its waters foaming 

 in rapids around the great pudding-stone bowlder araidstream, still called 

 the "French King," from a tradition that in the old French wars an expedi- 

 tion dropped down the river to this point and a venturesome officer pushed 

 his canoe to the head of the rapids and broke a bottle of wine on the great 

 rock, claiming the land for the French King. The broad stream then bends 

 sharply northwest and flows strongly in its deep gorge, while just at the 

 bend Millers River comes down over the rocks in a picturesque fall, flanked 

 by a ruined mill. The fall has scarcely worn back at all from the moiith 

 of the stream, and the whole impression is one of recency. 



Looking down on this Montague plain from one of the high hills east 

 of Millers Falls, one easily restores the beds eroded by Millers River, and 

 then the plain is seen to be the northern portion of its great delta, exjDand- 

 ing northward up the narrower part of the valley of the Connecticut. In 

 following this plain down from its north end, opposite the point where the 

 main stream enters its rocky gorge, a distance of about a mile, one finds 

 that the sands grow coarser and coarser and grade into gravel, and opposite 

 the point where Millers River leaves its rocky canyon in the eastern wall 

 of the valley — that is, at the head of the delta — many of the beds are of very 

 coarse gravel alternating with sand beds, showing the coarsest flow-and- 

 plunge structure. Moreover, the plain slopes southward quite rapidly, its 

 elevation being 362 feet north of Millers River and 350 feet south, at points 

 3,000 feet apart. 



That the delta deposits of the tributary could have been extended 

 north against the current of the main stream more than a half mile proves 

 tlaat the current of the main stream could not have been very strong, and 

 the southward slope of the surface of the delta indicates that the land was 

 there relatively depressed toward the north and has since risen. 



