ANDROSCOGGIN LAKES-POETLAND SYSTEM. 225 



ill the Little Androscoggin Valley some would still linger in the Andros- 

 coggin Valley farther to the north, and therefore a flood of glacial waters 

 still continued to pour south from Rumford to Bryants Pond, and so on, 

 down the Little Androscoggin Valley. These floods of muddy water, aug- 

 mented by the local drainage of the valley, would wash away and reassort 

 the surface j)ortions of the previously deposited osar-plain, and also carry 

 along its burden of drift washed down from the freshly exposed hills. In 

 this way it might happen that what might be a glacial river toward the 

 north could be considered an ordinary river farther south, where it flowed 

 unvexed by ice to the sea. A considerable portion of the alluvial di'ift of 

 this valley is undoubtedly a valley delta of frontal glacial sediment, 

 brought down by glacial streams and poured out into the open valley, like 

 the sediments that gather in the valleys below the Alpine glaciers, or like 

 the great plains of water-washed matter that extend south from the terminal 

 moraines of the continental glaciei-. 



South of the Soutli Paris and Norway villages the valley of the Little 

 Androscoggin rapidly widens. B}^ gradual transition the sedimentary plain 

 becomes finer, being composed of a lower layer of silty clay overlain by 

 sand and fine gravel. The upper sands have been extensively eroded, 

 largely by boiling springs. At Oxford Village the plain is about 2 miles 

 wide and the upper stratum consists of fine sand. The Little Androscoggin 

 here turns east. All the Avay to Auburn its valley is covered by deep clays 

 with some overlying sand. It is uncertain how far up the valley tide 

 water extended above Auburn. It is certain that a broad stream or body 

 of water at one time covered the valley all the way from Norway to 

 Auburn, and the lower (eastern) portion was certainly salt water. Into 

 this body of water poured, not only the local drainage, but also for a time 

 the glacial waters from the upper Androscoggin Valley which then flowed 

 south from Rumford past Bryants Pond. The large amount of water that 

 must at one time have occupied this valley is well shown by the broad 

 extent of sedimentary plains in Oxford. Two lines of clays, overlain by 

 sand, pass out from the main valley and rejoin it ag-ain several miles to the 

 south and east. The more eastern of these outlying plains follows the 

 valley along which the Grand Trunk Railway is built. The other j^laiii 

 passes around the west side of a hill lying northwest of Oxford Village and 

 ■comes to the shore of Thomjasons Pond about 2 miles west of the village. 



MON xxxiv 15 



