12 



From Springfield the Boston and Maine R. R. goes north to 

 Holyoke along the Connecticut River. The clay pits to the east 

 show the deposits in the middle of Springfield Lake, and are topped 

 with sands which were bars, etc. washed out into the lake in its later 

 phases. The flats near the river are terraces which the Connecticut 

 River has cut in postglacial times. At Holyoke the R. R. crosses 

 to the west side of the river and runs along the foot of the Tom 

 Range. (Mt. Tom is the one with a house on it three miles north 

 of Holyoke). Also about three miles north of the city one sees 

 ledges in the river. On these and also just west of the tracks ripple 

 marks and reptile tracks are well exposed. Two miles north of the 

 Smith's Ferry station the track crosses the Hampden trap, and 

 half a mile further the Holyoke trap, arriving at once at Mt. Tom 

 station. Here the mountain on the west is Nonotuck, while across 

 the river to the east is Mt. Holyoke. Just beyond this station is a 

 fine Oxbow of the Connecticut River, from which the road goes over 

 a broad river terrace into Northampton. 



From Northampton the railroad or trolley goes over the Hadley 

 Lake bottom, skirting the edge of a broad low river terrace on the 

 south; until the river is crossed, after which the way is over the 

 Hadley Lake bottom. About a mile from Amherst the trolley 

 begins to climb out of the lake bottom and at Prospect St. crosses 

 the shore line and is on the Amherst Island. All the way from 

 Northampton the Holyoke Range is seen some three miles to the 

 south, while to the north can be seen Mt. Sugarloaf and the Toby 

 group some eight miles away. 



Coming from Boston on the Boston and Maine the eastern highland 

 begins at Oakdale. A little west of Rutland the railroad begins to 

 descent following the Ware River. At Ware and from there to 

 Belcher town one is on the sands and gravels of the narrow posglacial 

 lakes associated with the branches of the Chicopee River, especially 

 the Ware and Swift Rivers, along which were the lakes known as 

 Shutsbury and Pelham Lakes. Just north of Belchertown lie the 

 Belchertown Ponds, which are kettle holes formed by the melting 

 of the last remnants of the ice, covered by the earliest shore beds of 

 postglacial Lake Hadley. From here one continues to Amherst over 

 the bottom of this extinct lake, skirting along the north side of the 

 Holyoke Range. 



On the Boston and Albany coming from Boston the eastern 

 upland begins at Worcester, and the railroad is crossing it until it 

 gets about three miles west of Palmer, when it enters the Connect- 



