152 The American Geologist, Scptomber, 1896 
The sandy tracts between Providence and the mouth of 
Narragansett bay, first referred to the Tertiary, have long 
been known to be late glacial accumulations. The}^ were re- 
ferred to the Champlain by Dana. In this paper it will be 
shown that these sands and gravels represent successive stages 
of retreat of the border of the ice-sheet northward across the 
l)ay region; that the southernmost of these deposits is the old- 
est and the northernmost the newest; and thus that they are 
not valley trains. In general terms their age may best be 
stated as newer than the Elizabeth Island or Cape Cod mo- 
raine and older than the Cape Ann moraine of Tarr. The 
accompanying map (plate VI), traced from the Narragansett 
Bay atlas folio of the U. S. Geological Survey, presents the 
distribution of the sand-plains in that area and exhibits by 
special designations the position of the ice-contact slopes or 
moraine terraces in accordance with a plan proposed in my 
recent paper on eskers.* 
Two stages of moraine building have been long recognized 
south of the field here described, an outer moraine including 
the superficial deposits of Block island and an inner moraine, 
here named the Charlestown moraine, skirting the southern 
coast of Rhode Island and forming the tip of point Judith. 
Rp:treatal Deposits on the West Side of the Bay. 
Narragansett bay sunders several glacial deposits that were 
evidently formed along ice-fronts more or less continuous 
across this inlet, so that it seems advisable to describe in suc- 
cession the deposits of each coast from south to north and 
then to attempt their correlation. 
the ohaklestown moraine. 
This name is employed here for that portion of the inner of 
the two moraines early recognized along the southern coast 
of New England. It extends the length of the southern coast 
of Rhode Island from Fisher's island to point Judith. The 
moraine is mentioned here for the reason that it has been sup- 
posed to extend northeastward into the region of moraines 
about Wickford, R. I. The tracing on the ground of the ice- 
contacts shows that other morainal belts come into the region 
about Wickford from the southeast, so that there was in that 
*Some Typical Eskers of southern New England, Proc. Boston Soc. 
Nat. Hi8t.,\ol. XXVI, 1894, pp. 197-220. 
