18 GUIDE TO LOCALITIES. 



NEWTONVILLE ESKER AND SAND-PLATEAU. 



Route.— By rail, Boston and Albany road, Kneeland street station, to 

 Newtonville; turn to south, following electric track to Cabot street ; fare 

 S.15. 



By electrics, Cambridge and Newton cars to Newton, change to New- 

 tonville and Newton Center cars; alight at Cabot street, Newtonville. 



By wheel, along Commonwealth avenue and extension from Boston 

 to Newtonville at the electric transfer station; turn to right, to Cabot 

 street. Distance from Boston eight miles. Turn down Cabot street, 

 following it till a gravel ridge crosses it, and the head of the esker lies 

 200 yards to the left. 



The esker can be followed readily southward from its sudden 

 rise from a sand-plain. At one point, however, where it takes a 

 broad sweep eastward, it has been cut entirely away. The relations 

 of cross-section, direction and height of crest-line do not follow 

 very closely the lines recorded by Woodworth for the Auburndale 

 esker. No good cross-section of the esker is visible ; unless the 

 gravel pit near Cabot street is in operation. Here at times a very 

 fine anticlinal structure is visible, the core being of cobbles up to 

 five inches in diameter, overlain by an arch of fine assorted sand, 

 with a clean contact between the two. Above this the anticline is 

 unsymmetrical, broadening on the outside of the curve. The esker 

 ends one hundred yards north of the third cross-road met in fol- 

 lowing it southward, branching into three termini. On the east is 

 swampy land. To the west, the normal topography has been 

 superseded by a secondary sand-plain and two subsidiary eskers 

 starting from near the north end of the first. Kettle holes and 

 kames are abundant in the neighborhood of the esker, especially 

 toward its foot. 



South of the terminus of the ridge is a fosse extending east 

 and west, beyond which the concave scallops of the head of the 

 sand-plain rise steeply. The material here is coarse, like that of 

 the south end of the esker. At times fresh cuts show the strati- 

 fication, without, however, rendering visible the "back-set beds" 

 noted by Davis. Walking south to Commonwealth avenue, fine 

 sections can be had near the electric transfer-station, showing fore- 

 set and top-set beds, the latter coarse and separated from the 

 former by an erosion contact. Eolian action often brings out the 

 more resistant laminae in portions which may be untouched for a 



