638 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUISTTY, MASS. 



abutting against the cliffs on tlie northwest. Its border against the granite 

 bluffs is exceptionally well preserved, but in places is deeply kettle-holed 

 in the portions adjoining the rocks. It stretches, except where interrupted 

 by drift islands, with gentle slope southward for a long distance, to descend 

 at last more abruptly to the village of Easthampton, its scarp being ter- 

 raced, but apparently not much cut back, while in Northampton it has 

 suffered much more serious erosion during the formation of the lower 

 terraces. 



The apex of the delta of Mill River in Northampton is where tlie bridge 

 crosses the rocky bed of the stream before entering Leeds. It widens sud- 

 denly at Florence. Its extent, apparently out of proportion to the drainage 

 area of Mill River and the other streams that formed it, is due largely to 

 the fact that its sands are spread out among the lenticular drift hills by 

 which the great bay in the crystalline rocks was filled. (See p. 543.) 



The cutting along the New Haven and Northampton Railroad made to 

 obtain material for raising the railroads through Northampton gave repeated 

 sections north of the railroad, extending- from the brook crossing east of 

 Florence to the crossroads next east, a distance of a quarter of a mile. 

 In all the western part of this section (which runs east and west) the sands 

 are cross-bedded on the grandest scale, the layers in the long cut, which 

 was 15 feet high, having a uniform and high westerly dip. In two cases 

 the material suddenly grew fine, and heavy clayey layers are intercalated 

 in the coarse buff to reddish sands. In the eastern portion of the section — 

 the part south of the cemetery — the beds bend over and dip east, and 

 are here greatly disturbed and mixed with g-lacial material by stranded 

 glacial ice. 



An inspection of the map will show that the long drumlin called 

 Strawberry Hill, just north of Florence, and the prominent drumlin north of 

 the Bay State, nearly cut off this area from direct communication with the 

 waters coming out of the Mill River gorge, and that these cross-bedded 

 sands must have gi-own as a broad sand spit extending south from Fortifi- 

 cation Hill to the north and made up of material swept south across the 

 Camp Meeting grounds and around the east side of this hill, so that they 

 were thrown down with strong westward dip on the inner (western) and 

 sheltered side of this bar, along the outer side of which the icebergs 

 stranded. 



