728 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIEE COUNTY, MASS. 



uortliward, eastward, or westward dips, according to their position upon 

 the bar of which they form part. 



The muck sands. — In 1838 President Hitchcock wrote :^ 



Luther Boot, iu digging a well in Sunderland, 80 rods from Connecticut River, 

 at bottom cut tbrough a thick stratum of quicksand smelling of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen. This sand i)roved to be very fertile. The same happened from a well iu 

 South Deerfield, on land of Mr. Eufus Eice. The bed was 6 feet from the surface. 

 On searching, the bed was found on the bank of the river in Sunderland. It is the 

 first stratum that retains water. 



President Hitchcock ti-aced it through the Connecticut, Deeiiield, and 

 Westfield river valleys. It is, when wet, slightly green and soapy, but is a 

 fine sand. It contains iron oxide and vegetable fiber, and many analyses 

 are given showing- "soluble and insoluble geine" (as the substances that 

 may be extracted from vegetable mold were then called), sulphate and phos- 

 phate of iron, and silica. In his final report^ he returns to the subject at 

 great length, compares the fertilizing part to the slime deposit of the river 

 and expects much from its use upon lauds. He calls it " muck sand," but 

 notes that it is commonly called quicksand. 



Where I ha^e been able to study this it has proved to be the finer 

 deposit thrown down in the channels between i.slands and the shore to which 

 they were in j^rocess of joining themselves, which channels are generally 

 silted up at the upstream ends first and remain then long filled with stag- 

 nant water. They are called "intervals" on many New England rivers. 



Peat deposits, plant remains. — In his first article on the geology of the 

 valley^ President Hitchcock writes: 



In the meadows, logs, leaves, butternuts, and walnuts are found undecayed 15 

 feet below the surface, and stumps of trees have been observed at that depth stand- 

 ing yet firmly where they once grew. In the same meadows a few years since several 

 toads were dug up from 15 feet below the surface, and 3 feet in gravel, which soon 

 recovered from a torpid state and hopped away. 



From the plain east of the south end of Sunderland street, beneath 7 

 feet of sand, hemlock logs with bark and leaves, beech nuts, and pine burs, 

 have been very frequently dug up, as reported to me by Dr. Trow, of that 

 town. These remains occm- sparingly iu the river sands everywhere as 

 water-logged fragments, and more abundantly in old stream beds and in the 



'Economic Geology of Massachusetts, p. 93. 



-Geology of M.issachusetts, 1841, p. 107. 



^Geologyof DeerUeld: Am. Jour. Sci., 1st series, Vol. 1, 1819, p. 108; also Final Report, 1841, p. 366. 



