THE TERRACES OF THE CONNECTICUT. 723 



A stream tends to iucrease its meanderiugs until friction on bank and 

 bottom of its increased length uses up all the force derived from its descent 

 during- flood time. But when this happy equilibrium is reached the river 

 goes beyond it and grows too long. It then, for relief, cuts oft' an oxbow in 

 a sluggish stretch, as the Coiniecticut has often done between Sugar Loaf 

 and Holyoke. This gives the section of the stream new life and eroding- 

 power by as much as it is shortened; and hence, since the great oxbow was 

 cut off" at the Northampton Meadow there has been more complaint of the 

 loss of land by erosion across the Hadley and Northampton meadows than 

 anywhere else on the river. The erosion has been especially severe at the 

 upper and lower ends of Hadley street, and the location of the two bridges 

 at Northampton has done much to direct and deflect the stream, especially 

 promoting the erosion above those bridges on the east side and the growth 

 of the islands on the west. At the extreme western apex of the great bend 

 the stream has worn into a hill of coarse di-ift, out of which it has con- 

 structed a natural riprap, which is restored as often as broken, and a period 

 is put to the stream's wear in that direction, so that everything- points to its 

 cutting across parallel to Hadley street unless careful precautions are taken — 

 more careful, it seems to me, than have been thought necessary. 



By the continued work of the agents here briefly mentioned, some of 

 which are more fully discussed in the section on incomplete terraces (p. 731), 

 the Connecticut has swung to and fro across the abandoned lake bottom as 

 a, cable swings through the water. The sands have melted away before it 

 and filled in behind it, holding- it to a constant width. In the Springfield 

 Lake it has cut down ver}^ deeply into the lake sands, especially below 

 Holyoke, forming many and complicated ten-aces. 



In the Hadley Lake it has lowered only very little since it began to 

 flow as a river, forming few and broad terraces. At the Northampton bridge 

 the track runs ofl^ the bridge at the west end and cuts the lake bottom, and 

 from the east end one looks down on the lowest complete teiTace, less than 

 20 feet below the level of the bridge. In the Montague Lake the downward 

 erosion was arrested by the waters striking the Lily Pond sandstone reef, 

 in Gill, and after they had rounded this reef they cut down rapidly to 

 present level, forming an extra terrace not marked farther south. 



