PALERMO-WAEREN SYSTEM. 161 



the western series and takes a southeast course through "The Gore," a poi'- 

 tion of land unattached to any town, and passes aroimd the northeastern 

 base of Patrick Mountain. In so doing it goes up and over a hill 100 feet 

 high, and then descends into the valley of Branch Stream, where it turns 

 southward and soon unites Avith the series which diverged from it near 

 Sheepscot Great Pond to go around the western base of Patrick Mountain. 

 Except on the steep down slopes and one gap on an up slope, the gravels 

 are continuous along the courses here indicated. The material is in general 

 rather coarse, many cobbles, bowlderets, and some bowlders being mixed 

 with the sand and gravel. The stones are all very round, an indication that 

 thev are part of a long system, not of a local one. The field proof is 

 positive that these large glacial rivers diverged from each other so as to go 

 around opposite sides of a high hill and then came together. In both cases 

 we find little or no gravel on down slopes of from 60 to 100 feet per mile, 

 but it is certain the glacial streams came from the north to the top of the 

 hills, and must have flowed down them; and at the base of the hills the 

 gravel begins again. It is a fair inference that on the steep slopes the 

 glacial streams were so rapid as to deposit little, if any, sediment. 



From where the two glacial rivers united, in the valley of Branch 

 Stream, a nearly continuous osar-plain extends southward near the stream 

 for a few miles, when the gravel leaves this stream and takes a course south- 

 eastward, soon expanding into a large, somewhat fan-shaped plain, situated 

 not far southwest of NcAvhalls Corner, in Washington. This plain consists, 

 toward the north, of broad reticulated ridges inclosing shallow hollows. 

 The material here is coarse. Toward the south the plain becomes quite 

 level and the gravel passes into sand and finally into the marine clay. It 

 is 2.^ miles long and more than a mile wide. It is plainly a marine delta, 

 and its shape is such as to make it probable that it was deposited in the 

 open sea, possibly in a very broad bay of the ice. Its outlet has cut down 

 a channel 100 or more feet wide to a depth of about 4 feet, and numbers of 

 ordinary till bowlders are exposed where the gravel has been removed. 

 The little polishing they may have received from the gravel has been 

 obliterated by weathering. The same thing is observed over a considerable 

 .area, and proves conclusively thait the glacial gravel and sand overlie the 

 till and are without admixture of till; hence they were deposited after the 

 jnelting of the ice at this place. The outlet of the lake above described 



MON XXXIV 11 



