652 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



by this similar slope, Avliich stretches east from the Catholic cemetery across 

 the Hampden plain. 



Tlie highest sands (1 s h) on the east and west sides of the plain run 

 south with regular slope and then drop quite abruptly in this teiTacelike 

 construction scarp. The deep cuttings of the Westfield and Holyoke Rail- 

 road and the many openings on the north edge of the Westfield basin do 

 not give any sign that the Westfield ever wore up to the foot of this scarp. 

 Everything indicates rather that the whole plain north and south of the 

 later-eroded basin of the Westfield Avas the result of one continuous opera- 

 tion, and that this scarp was formed east and west across the channel of the 

 main stream just where the waters of the Westfield River joined its waters, 

 and the outlet through the Di\'ide Range gave a means of communication with 

 the eastern lake, and thus the carrying power of the main stream was sud- 

 denly lessened along this line, and the scarp was the index of that lessening. 

 The diminished current carried finer material, and in the steep erosion scarp 

 by which one descends from the south edge of the plain to the Westfield 

 River basin, a mile south of the Catholic cemeter)^, we have many deep 

 sections showing a great thickness of sands so fine that the owners have 

 often attempted to utilize them for brick making, but without success. On 

 the south of this broad original depression which guided the Westfield 

 rivers finally back to the gorge in the Divide Range and to the Connecticut, 

 the fine sands continue in "Poverty plain," west of Little River, rising from 

 229 feet on the edge north of the Westfield basin to 264 feet on the south 

 of the basin of the Little River, in the center of Poverty plain — an enormous 

 waste of desolate sands whose increased height comes from the sands of the 

 Westfield rivers swept down around the high drift hills of the "Fox district." 

 The broad "Avenue plain" between the two Westfield rivers is a very 

 interesting portion of the original plain of the flooded river. It is now about 

 a mile wide and 4 miles long, and stretches from where it rests against the 

 drift border of the valley between the two Westfield rivers, at a height 

 of 290 feet, eastward to the cemetery in Westfield, descending 16 feet 

 per mile (Diller), and bounded north, south, and east by the deep erosion 

 basins of the two rivers. It is made up very largely of quite coarse and 

 well-washed gravels, even out at its eastern end, which are exposed in 

 many natural sections and gi'avel pits, notably just east of the cemetery, 

 where the well-sorted and rounded gravel is 12 to 14 feet thick and rests 



