78 GLACIAL GRAVELS OF MAINE. 



and runs into the north end of Meddybemps Lake at an elevation of 

 150 feet} 



The southwestern angle of the broad part of this lake is bordered by 

 a large 'peat-covered heath, in the midst of which is a rounded hummock, 

 said to be composed of sand and gravel. It rises about 30 feet above the 

 peat and is in the line of the gravels; it is probably a part of the system. 

 From near the south end of this heath a plain of sand and gravel extends 

 southward along the eastern base of a hill which lies parallel with the lake 

 and outlet, and about 1 mile west of them. On the north this plain shows 

 mounds and low ridges of gravel rising above the surrounding plains of 

 gravel. It is here less than one-fourth of a mile in breadth. Going south- 

 ward the material becomes finer, the top is more level, and it expands laterally, 

 so as to be nearly a mile broad at the point where it is crossed by the road 

 leading west from Meddybemps Post-Office. Both the east and west sides 

 of the i^lain here rise steeply above the sedimentary clay and sandy clay 

 which flank it, as a narrow border, toward the north at the angle of the lake, 

 but toward the south it becomes broader, so as to cover the whole valley 

 not far south of Meddybemps Village. Near there the gravel plain becomes 

 finer by degrees and rises not so far above the clay, and soon they merge 

 into each other and extend as a sheet of marine clay all the way to the sea. 

 The plain lying west of the village is thus seen to have the gradations of 

 sediments characteristic of the delta when examined lengthwise. Why, 

 then, did it not sjiread outward across the whole valley! From the village 

 northward the gravel plain lies about 40 feet above the outlet of the lake 

 and the river. Had the ice melted over the whole valley, the gravel plain 

 and its bordering clay would have spread across the valley and along the 

 shores of the lake, whereas no clay to speak of appears at the lake. This 

 can be accounted for only on the hypothesis that at the time the gravel plain 

 west of the village was being deposited ice still covered the locality now 

 occiapied by the eastern part of the lake and the valley of Dennys River 

 and as far south as where the gravel and sand delta merge into the marine 

 clay. Here was the ice front, and to the south lay the open sea, where the 

 finer sediments were spread far and wide. To the north lay a broad chan- 

 nel in the ice. The elevation of the place where the sea margin then stood was 



'This lake is estimated at 250 feet in Walter Wells's Water Power of Maine, p. 129, Augusta, 

 1869. This was a typographical error. The estimate sent to Mr. Wells by P. E. Vose, esq., of 

 Dennysville, was 150 feet. 



