416 J. D. Dana—Depression of Southern New England 
The part of the plain stretching northward through Hamden 
to Mount Carmel village, reaching there a height of about 115 
feet above the sea, owes its slope to the pitch of the flooded 
stream, which there flowed over a sandstone region with no deep 
channel to confine its waters and direct their course. at it 
was not due to marine submergence to a depth of 115 feet is 
proved by the facts in the adjoining Quinnipiac valley, a mile 
and a half to the eastward. For at North Haven, six miles 
north of New Haven, the stratified drift or terrace has a height 
above flood level not exceeding 45 feet; and this is but two 
feet above its level five miles to the south, just north of west 
of New Haven city ; facts which show that there was a nearly 
level surface over the great Quinnipiac basin or harbor between 
these distant points, and that the greatest height of the marie 
submergence, if there was one, could not have exceeded 46 feet. 
If then the upper part of the sloping plain from Mount Car- 
mel southward was made by fresh waters from the melting 
glacier, shall we conclude that this was true also of the lower 
part, nearly to the West Haven shore? The slope of this 
lower part is no greater than that more to the northward ; and 
hence there is little objection to the conclusion from this source. 
The bay is small and throughout shallow, being but 8 to 18 
feet deep at low tide, and little of it over 12 feet; so that it 
did not afford a capacious channel for the escape of the flood 
course of a mile, and to 6 to 8 feet in the next half a mile; 
this is due to the rapid descent in the stream, which is 224 fee 
in the first mile, and 50 feet in the following half a mile, 724 
feet in all. 
the height of the terrace . 
the head of New Haven 
) consequence of the denudation by the Glacial flood, as | ok 
_explained.* But at Whitneyville, near the dam, the pee the 
