748 GEOLOGY OF OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



DUXES AXD WIXD I^OESS.' 



President Hitchcock notes - the dunes in Montague and Hadley, and 

 in the east part of Hadley south of the road, and their motion southeast- 

 wardlv.^ The lake bottom in Northfield is strikingly cut up hj great dunes 

 over the whole of the Beers plain, and farther south in Montague one can 

 see where they have crept upon the west slopes of the islands which rose in 

 the midst of the old delta of Millers River, the broad Montague plain. 



The low lake bottom in Hatfield, made up as it is of very fine sands, 

 is also greatly affected by old dunes, and many of the scattered farm 

 buildings are here built upon dunes, while a line of still moving sand drifts 

 runs up through the center of the plain, and is indicated on the map. 



But the most remarkable exhibition of dunes in the vallej^ is where 

 the prevalent westerly winds strike the scarp which, on the east side of the 

 river, separates the flood plain of the Connecticut from the lake bottom. 

 This sharp, westward-facing scarp has been longest exposed to the winds, 

 and is made up of very fine sands, and taking the eastern of the roads 

 which runs from Sunderland to North Hadley, one crosses an almost con- 

 tinuous line of great sand drifts until this road joins the next westerly one, 

 and the line of dunes is continued southward, and along the west side of 

 Mount Warner has pushed high uj) the side of the hill. Farther south the 

 scarp is notched in many ^jlaces by old or still active dunes, one of which 

 is in sight on the south side of the road from Amherst to Northampton, 

 just before it enters Hadley. 



JVind loess. — All along the west slope of the Amherst ridge, especially 

 opposite the lower openings in the ridge, as across the old cemetery or south 

 of College Hill, a layer of fine inistratified loam or loess has been brought 

 by the prevailing westerly winds from the broad lake bottom of fine sand 

 which extends west from the bottom of the ridge. This layer is from 2 to 

 2J feet thick, and extends over the whole ridge, resting on the shore sands 

 and gravels, and higher up on the till, and extends for a long distance 

 down over the east slope. I have traced it everywhere over the ridge in 

 the network of cuttings for the gas and water pipes, the sewers, and the 



' See PI. XXXV, in pocket at end of volume 



'Geology of MassachuBetts, p. 130; Jour. Boston Soo. Nat. Hist., Vol. I, p. 80. 



^Geology of Massachusetts, Final Report, p. 326. 



