310 The Anterica?i Geologist. May, i89» 
CHAMPLAIN SUBMERGENCE IN THE 
NARRAGANSETT BAY REGION. 
By Myron L. Fuller, Boston, Mass. 
The object of this paper is to show the improbability of 
certain assumptions which have been made as to the relative 
hights of land and sea during the deposition of some of the 
sand-plains of the Narragansett bay region of Rhode Island 
at the time of the final retreat of the ice sheet. 
The considerable elevation of the higher terraces of the 
Connecticut, Thames and other rivers of southern New Eng- 
land above the level of their present flood-plains was at 
first tacitly accepted as pointing to a corresponding Cham- 
plain depression of the region below the present level. Dana, 
however, forcibly opposed the acceptance of such evidence 
as giving any absolute indication of the amount of depression. 
He argued that the high waters of the river valleys were due. 
in a large measure, not to the depression of the land, but to 
the enormous floods of water set free by the rapid ablation 
accompanying the final retreat of the ice sheet when, as he 
has put it*, "centuries of precipitated moisture were let loose 
at once." The excessive amounts of water, in connection 
with the natural obstacles in the shape of abrupt bends, con- 
stricted valleys, junction with large tributaries, etc., which are 
common to all the rivers of southern New England, is suflfi- 
cient, few will deny, to account in an important degree for 
the great differences in the altitudes of the Champlain and the 
present flood plains. Ice dams, as urged by the author 
quoted, may also have been an efBcient adjunct to the natural 
obstacles just mentioned. The fact that even at the present 
day at Hartford, some fifty miles above the mouth of the 
Connecticut river, the difference between high and low water 
has often exceeded twenty-five feet, lends considerable weight 
to the assumption. 
In recent years Mr. J. B. Woodworth, in connection with 
the work of the United States Geological Survey, has made 
a careful study of the modified drift phenomena of the region 
of Narragansett bay, and has published f a description and 
map of the various sand-plains marking the different stages 
*Am. Jour. Sci., 3. vol. X, p. 437. 
tAmer. Geol., vol. XVIII, pp. 150-168, 391-392. 
