MODIFIED DRIFT ALONG CONNECTICUT RIVER. 27 
The most extensive intervals or meadows are between Woodsville and 
Bradford, Vt., 12 miles long and one half to one mile wide, including the 
Lower Coés intervals of Newbury, Vt., Haverhill, and Piermont; and in 
Charlestown and Rockingham, Vt. 6 miles long and half a mile wide. 
But, in addition to these, smaller areas, up to a mile or more in length 
and a few rods to a half mile wide, are of common occurrence along the 
entire valley. These bottom-lands are very fertile, being composed of 
the finest silt, and enriched every year by a coating of mud from the 
turbid freshets of spring. Many of the lower terraces which are not 
overflowed are of the same material; but the higher terraces usually 
show some intermixed sand or fine gravel. 
These lateral terraces are less plainly continuous in extent and height 
than the intervals or the upper terrace. They are sometimes numerous, 
again wanting; seldom agreeing in height on opposite sides; usually 
showing a slight slope with the river, but not often more than one or two 
miles, and generally less than one mile in length, and succeeded by others 
higher or lower. An examination of them over long distances, however, 
sometimes shows a well-marked series, descending with the river, and 
recording a height at which, during the process of erosion, it remained 
nearly stationary for an unusual length of time, forming a broad and 
continuous flood-plain, now interrupted and mainly swept away by the 
further deepening of the channel. These terraces are almost always 
level-topped, and bounded at the face by a steep escarpment; and their 
appearance is sometimes very striking, and even grand, as they rise in 
gigantic steps on the side of the valley, shaped with a smoothness, 
order, and beauty which could not be surpassed by art. 
The greatest widths of modified drift that can be measured in this 
valley, on the west side of New Hampshire, are in Haverhill and 
Newbury, two miles, and in Hinsdale and Vernon, two and a half miles 
wide. The average width is fully one mile. The narrowest places are 
at Shaw’s mountain, near the south line of Bradford, Vt., and at Barber’s 
mountain, in Claremont, both of which occupy the middle of the valley, 
with narrow belts of alluvium on each side; at the west side of Rattle- 
snake‘hill, Charlestown; and at the south end of Wantastiquit mountain, 
below Brattleborough, Vt. We do not discover, however, at these places, 
or elsewhere, any evidence of former barriers, which could have made the 
