THE TERRACES OF THE CONXEOTICITT. 725 



The view given in PL XXII is taken t'roni the edge of the higli ter- 

 race a mile noith of Willis Hill, in Montague, looking north aci-oss the Con- 

 necticut during the spring flood. The stretch of the river between the 

 "narrows" and the "horserace" is double the usual width, and it extends 

 south covering the broad flats shown on the map. The broad notch (a b) 

 in the sandstone ridge to the north, across the river, is the notch by wliicli 

 the waters formerly passed to fall deeply into the canyon concealed to the 

 north. The small southward projection on the map, of the crescent-shaped 

 jjond, which is the Lily Pond, represents this canyon. The contours on 

 the map are here incoiTect, for the g-round rises along- the ridge to the east. 

 The second notch (c) is opposite the next pond to the left; the place where 

 the river turned the obstacle (d) and cut down to the point of the sand- 

 stone ridge is the narrows on the maj). 



THP: I^0W-L,ETEL, terraces and flood PliAIK OF THE CONNECT- 

 ICUT IN THE BASIN OF THE MONTAGUE LAKE. 



The subsidence of the waters of tlie C(Minecticut lakes to the present 

 Connecticut River was very rapid, interrupted above the Lily Pond falls 

 during their existence (see PI. XXII), but completed perhaps still more 

 suddenly here by the turning of the Lily Pond reef b}' the waters, as 

 described on the preceding page. 



As a result, one goes down — through the whole length of the Mon- 

 tague Lake, which was well filled up in the flood time, except in its southern 

 portion — by a great scarp to the series of erosion tei-races of the modern 

 river, the highest of which rise but a few feet above the level of the flood 

 plain. I have colored these on the map with difterent shades of yellow 

 the darkest for the highest and oldest terrace, farthest from the river (t^), 

 the lightest shade but one for the present flood plain (t^), and a very light 

 yellow for well-marked but incomplete ten-aces below the completed flood 

 plain (t*). Abandoned oxbows (o x) and old river courses (o b) now play 

 an, important part and ai'e colored by lines of the same shade as the terrace 

 coeval with them. 



These later ten-aces form the "meadows" of the Connecticut. The 

 Northfield Meadows and the romantic recess opposite, and the beautiful 

 Pine Meadow above Northfield Farms, are the only ones of considerable 

 extent carved in the northern lake, for from the latter place the river 



