11 



building and extending around back of the church and Walker 

 Hall. Counting the layers of clay and figuring that each represents an 

 annual deposit, the lake lasted some 4000 years. 



Then came the postglacial uplift of New England, amounting to 

 around 100 feet at the south end of the valley and over 600 in middle 

 New Hampshire. In this region it was around 300 feet. The lake, 

 thus tipped up at its northern end quickly drained away; and the 

 Connecticut River sought out a channel over the low parts of its 

 bottom, into which it has cut thirty to fifty feet deep at the present 

 time. In flood times it has spread over the clay of the lake bottom 

 a varying layer of sand and loam, which makes the tobacco and 

 onion soil of this section. 



Probably associated with this uplift are numerous recent faults 

 in the Toby group, and in the Holyoke Range, which vary in height 

 from 5 to 100 feet in displacement. Near Sunderland one of these 

 has cut the old shore line and for a distance of four miles dropped it 

 from 80 to 50 feet below where it should normally appear in that 

 region. These were the last geologic events in the valley and since 

 then it has stood so little altered that this last disturbance must 

 have been very recent. 



WHAT TO SEE COMING TO AMHERST 



In coming to Amherst various bits of the foregoing history can be 

 readily seen from the car window. 



Coming from Albany, just before reaching Pittsfield, extensive 

 gravel banks indicate where the west shore of the postglacial Lake 

 Housatonic lay while the flats about Pittsfield were the lake bottom, 

 the east shore being seen also in gravel beds near Dalton. After a 

 short climb over the divide, the railroad begins its descent from the 

 western upland by winding down the valley of the Westfield River, 

 and enters the Connecticut Valley and the Postglacial Lake Hadley 

 basin about four miles west of Westfield. The gravel embankment 

 to the north of the railroad is part of the delta which the Westfield 

 River made in Lake Hadley. Three miles east of Westfield the 

 road and river pass through a notch in the Mt. Tom Range which 

 is caused by a fault and was a waterway connecting Lakes Hadley 

 and Springfield. The rest of the way to Springfield is over the bot- 

 tom of former Lake Springfield. 



