of Shells in the Till near Boston. 361 



^vere found 100 feet below the surface and about 40 feet below 

 the sea level.* 



An article published last summer by Mr. W. W. Dodge, f 

 describing the section of the sea-cliff of Great Head, Winthrop, 

 and noting its fossil shell fragments, specially directed my 

 attention to this subject. An examination of Great Head and 

 of the lower drumlin at Point Shirley convinced me, as before 

 stated, that the former was the locality of Dr. Stimpson's 

 earlier and widely known observations. Mr. Dodge also in- 

 formed me of the occurrence of similar shell fragments in 

 Grover's cliff on the northeast shore of Winthrop, nearly one 

 and a half miles north of Great Head. 



My observations have included these drift sections and others 

 in Winthrop, Revere, Chelsea, and thence southwest and south 

 around Boston harbor, on several of the islands in the harbor, 

 on the peninsula of Hull and JSTantasket, and in Hingham, 

 Cohasset, and Scituate. In only a small proportion of the 

 whole number of sections examined were glacially transported 

 shells and fragments of shells observed, these being found in 

 Grover's cliff and Great Head, Winthrop, on Long island, 

 Moon, Peddock's and Nut islands, in Quincy Great hill, in the 

 drumlin forming the north shore of Hull close northwest of 

 Telegraph hill, and in Sagamore Head, which rises from the 

 Nantasket beach. All the other sections seen failed to yield 

 any trace of organic remains, excepting that scanty fragments 

 of lignite were found along an extent of two or three feet in 

 the modified drift forming the base of the drumlin of Third 

 cliff in Scituate by Prof. Crosby and Mr. Bouve", who accom- 

 panied me in an excursion there. Without doubt, however, 

 such transported shell fragments will be found in many other 

 drumlins on islands in the harbor and on its eastern and 

 southern shores, where they should be looked for in any deep 

 section of the till, as in digging wells and in cliffs undermined 

 by the sea. 



The area where shells and fragments of shells are known to 

 occur in the till has an extent of ten or eleven miles from 

 northwest to southeast, reaching from East Boston and Grover's 

 cliff to Sagamore Head, with a width of three or four miles, if 

 not more, its eastern limit, which is the open ocean, being at a 

 distance of four and a half miles east-northeast and eleven miles 

 east-southeast of Boston. The fossiliferous sections are all in 

 lenticular hills of till, like the drumlins of Great Britain, which 

 name is now adopted for them. These hills have a very fine 



. * Reported by Mr. W. H. Niles in the Proceedings B. S. N. H., vol. xii, 1869, 

 pp. 244 and 364. In. commenting on this discovery, Mr. T. T. Bouve read a letter 

 from a gentleman in Hull, noting similar facts known to him in his own vicinity, 

 (p. 364.) 



\ This Journal, III, vol. xxxvi, p. 56, July, 



