532 Surface Geology of the Merrimack Valley. [September, 
ridges of gravel have been often described by European geolo- 
gists, under the various names of kames in Scotland, eskers in 
Ireland, and åsar in Sweden. 
In Concord these kames form the uneven east part of Blossom 
Hill cemetery, and extend south one and a half miles. The south 
end of this series is a single steep ridge twenty-five to forty feet 
high, called Whale’s Back, which originally extended a quarter 
of a mile. Its north portion has been used by the city in making 
and repairing streets. No kame-like deposits were discovered 
along the east side of the river in Concord, the whole mass of the 
plains being fine alluvium. 
Similar ridges were next found just below the mouth of Sou- 
cook River, exposed by railroad excavation on both sides of the 
Merrimack. The kame here cut through by this river is a portion 
of a series which extends twenty miles, from Loudon to Man- 
chester. The greater part of these kames consist of very coarse, 
water-worn gravel, containing pebbles six inches to two feet in 
diameter, with no intermixture of clear sand. They are disposed 
in irregular ridges of southerly trend with the valley, sometimes 
single, but more often with irregular branches, or several are par- 
allel to each other. Their height varies from sixty to one hun- 
dred and twenty-five feet above the river, and they are often cov- 
ered, or nearly so, by the alluvium of the plains. Upon the Sou- 
cook River these kames are repeatedly cut through by its present 
channel, as also near its mouth by the Merrimack, but in the 
fourteen miles farther south they lie wholly on the west side of 
the Merrimack, near the edge of its alluvial area. 
This series of kames and others observed along Merrimack 
River in New Hampshire, the single continuous kame, one hun- 
dred and fifty to two hundred feet in height, which extends 
twenty-four miles along Connecticut River from Lyme, N. H., 
to Windsor, Vt., and a notable series which extends from Saco 
River at Conway to Six-Mile Pond, and from Ossipee Lake 
southeastward along Pine River, all lie in the middle or lowest 
parts of the valleys, which are bordered by high ranges of hills. 
The kames which we have next to consider do not follow the 
present water-courses, but run directly across the Merrimack and 
other rivers, which here have no well-marked valleys, being not 
much lower than the hollows between the hills on either side. 
Occupying these hollows, the kames extend long distances 17 s 
somewhat devious but, for the whole series, quite straight courses 
which is about half-way between south and southeast. 
