IN MASSACHUSETTS AND VERMONT. 137 



ville village, on the road to Blanford. Near the top of the hill, 1176 feet above 

 Connecticut river, and 1240 above the ocean, the rocks are smoothed ; and stria?, 

 though almost obliterated, can be traced, running S. 10° E. and N. 10° W. On 

 the same surface, also, especially the northern slope, I think I could discern striae 

 having a direction S. 60° W. and N. 60° E. Which set of striae were made first, 

 I found it difficult to ascertain. A little further north, 65 feet above the first 

 named point, I found striae running S. 20° E. and N. 20° W. But the cross stria? 

 were not visible. That the stoss side in both cases, where the stria? approach 

 nearest to the meridian, I could not doubt was the north side : but in the other 

 case, I could not satisfy myself which side had been struck. I suspect that the 

 latter were produced by the glacier that descended through the gorge on Little 

 river, already described, which probably commenced much further to the west. 

 The former stria? appeared to belong to the drift. 



Returning now to the spot on the north side of Little river where the supposed 

 glacier stria? exist, and ascending the steep face of the mountain northerly, we 

 find, as already described, the striation evidently less and less distinct, though the 

 abrasion is obvious enough, especially if we follow up the crest of the ridge. At 

 the top of the first summit, 314 feet above the lowest stria?, that is, about 785 feet 

 above the village of Westfield, and 956 above the ocean, we meet with several 

 quite large and striking boulders, one of which measured 55 feet in circumference. 

 One of our party, Mr. Henry B. Nason, of the Scientific Department in Amherst 

 college, took a sketch of two of the most remarkable of these, which forms Plate 

 X, Fig. 2. They are partially enveloped by shrubs and trees, and access to them 

 is rather difficult ; but they are well worth the trouble of visiting. I regard them 

 as the result of drift agency rather than of glaciers, although it is possible that the 

 glacier might once have overtopped this hill. 



This eminence is one of the summits of Middle Tekoa, and it overlooks a wide 

 extent of country to the northwest, from whence the drift agency came. To the 

 northeast, however, other ridges of the mountain rise considerably higher. We 

 passed to the north end of what may be called a middle ridge of the mountain, 

 perhaps half a mile from the boulders, and where it begins to slope northerly 

 towards Westfield river. Here the marks of drift action are very manifest in the 

 rounding and abrasion of the rocks, and the north side was the stoss side. Gene- 

 rally the small striae have disappeared ; but in a few places I found grooves run- 

 ning S. 20° E. and N. 20° W. Towards the south end of the hill is quite an 

 accumulation of boulders. The smoothed rocks show themselves occasionally as 

 we descend the hill southerly, very nearly as low down as the highest of the rocks 

 striated at right angles by the glacier. Indeed, the two agencies can be traced 

 very near to each other in several places. 



All the circumstances then at this spot seem to conspire to sustain the opinion, 

 that either before or after the drift period, a glacier descended through the gorge of 

 Little river, which has subsequently deepened its bed nearly 300 feet. The results 

 of the three kinds of action, the fluviatile, the glacial, and the drift, are here in so 

 close juxtaposition that one or two hours' walk will bring distinct examples of each 

 under the eye ; and although I have found analogous phenomena in other places, I 

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