RELATIONS OF GRAVEL DEPOSITS 205 



topographic relationship indicate strongly that the esker stream was 

 the feeder of the Newton Highlands delta. 



Newton Highlands plain. — This plain, somewhat irregular in 

 shape, extends a little over a mile in an east-and-west direction, and 

 half a mile in its greatest breadth north and south. Like the Newton- 

 ville plain, it is bounded on the east by a rock hill, has ice-contact 

 slopes on the north and northwest, and frontal lobes on the south; 

 but the ice-contact in this case differs in character from the other 

 by being extremely irregular, and in places much broken up by 

 kettles. On the southwest the fore-sets run against the rock hill south 

 of Eliot Station; on the north and south it is bounded mainly by low, 

 swampy areas. It is for the most part a typical sandplain. 



Cook Street esker. — The most interesting feature of the Newton 

 Highlands plain is on the south side, near the Cook Street junction 

 of the New York, New Haven & Hartford with the Boston & Albany 

 Railroad. At this point a small knob of conglomerate rises above 

 the glacial drift, and towards the north and east the fore-sets are broken 

 and irregular, indicating the presence of ice here at the time of their 

 deposition. Directly east of the conglomerate knob and south of 

 Cook Street is a low esker running southward out of the sandplain. 

 Beyond the first road it rises to a height of 30 feet or more above the 

 swamp, and farther south widens to a breadth of at least 500 feet; 

 but within 2,000 feet ends abruptly at a small brook. As this some- 

 what peculiar esker has been extensively excavated, its internal 

 structure can be easily studied. The south end being in itself some- 

 thing of a delta, the main stream which formed it was probably not 

 directly tributary to any plain. 



Winchester Hill eskers and plain. — A few hundred feet to the 

 west, however, and holding very definite relations to the small plain 

 west of Winchester Hill, is another esker. Starting half-way up the 

 side of the rock hill south of Eliot Station, it descends fully 40 feet, 

 becoming at once a good-sized ridge, crosses the swamp to the kame 

 field west of Highland Avenue, with which it soon becomes confused, 

 and joins the sandplain at its northw est corner. 



The Winchester Hill plain is comparatively small, hardly one- 

 eighth the size of the Newtonville plain, although topographically its 

 relations are somewhat similar; it is bounded on the east by a drumlin, 



