MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 75 
determining the course of a fault, care must be taken to select as guides 
at least three points, which lie alternately on opposite sides of the frac- 
ture. It is evident that an error may result from trusting too implicitly 
to the apparent termination of a ridge, for the real termination may 
be covered ; but if three ridges, of which the first and third are on one 
side of the fault and the second is on the other, all terminate on the 
same straight line, the presumption is very strong that they indicate 
a straight fault and that the indication may be trusted. The case 
in hand therefore needs additional ridge-endings before the fault line 
can be established. The south end of Chauncy Peak (11) and of 
its posterior (15) and the high north end of Higby Mountain (16) 
serve abundantly for this purpose. The southern end (15) of the ridge 
posterior to Lamentation and Chauncy is found a little south of the rail- 
road cut to the east of Highland station, mentioned on the first day’s 
walk as affording a good exposure of the sandstone overlying the lava. 
The ridge ends in a little knoll back of a farm house and barn, north of 
the Meriden—Westfield road. In sighting backward from this knoll, the 
course of the fault is seen to be curved, and if the middle of the meadow 
between this point and the north end of Higby be taken as the location 
of the fault, its curvature is greater still; but this is hardly more than 
might be expected: a straight line fault is too rigid to be natural. On 
continuing the walk to the northeast, a reverse curvature of the fault line 
is required, in order to leave the long descending ridge (17) of Higby 
Mountain on its eastern side. The northernmost low end of Higby is 
found at High Falls (18), where the trap suddenly ends. The little 
gorge opened by Falls Brook discloses much breccia in fractures running 
northeasterly, and evidently associated with the strong fault close by. 
No other outcrops appear for some distance, but a cut on the Cromwell 
railroad, just west of Westfield station and about a mile and a half north- 
east of High Falls, reveals strong disturbance in the dip of the shales 
there exposed, as well as two faults of indeterminate throw. It is likely 
that these dislocations are associated with the fault that we have been 
tracing. It is interesting to notice that the course of the fault thus 
traced curves somewhat in the neighborhood of the north end of Higby 
Mountain, and that the curvature is closely conformable to that found 
between the Lamentation and Chauncy Peak blocks. 
On returning to Meriden, a superb view of the valley may be gained 
by an easy walk up a path leading to the terminal bluff of Chauncy 
Peak from the road below it. The strong range known as Beseck Moun- 
tain, formed on the main sheet, may be traced many miles southward 
