KiS I'hc American Geoloyis', S(.|.ti>mi)cT, is96 
I i mi nary question tiian that of the absoliiti' ii|)1)(m- limit of this 
water body is the (|uestion whether this water was at sea level 
or was above it; for in the latter case it would not be an in- 
dieatior. of the stand of tiu- land with relation to the sea. 
At first sij^ht the evidence apj)ears to favor submerj2;ence of 
the land. There are. however, several significant facts to be 
observed in the disti-ibution of th(^ lingering masses of ice in 
this field, poinding to the possibility of ice dams, which should 
not be overlooked. 'J'here is a marked tendency in the Nar- 
ragansett bay region toward long north and soutii depressions 
held open by ice while the sand-plains and eskers were accu- 
mulating. These depressions may be seen near Central Falls, 
about Providence, and in the long trench west and north of 
Wickford -Junction. It is obvious that the ice remnants in 
the troughs of the bay were last to melt out because the ice 
was there thickest. The tongue which ended in (Ireenwich 
cove indicates by its saiid-plains the length of time taken for 
its liquefaction. Had similar but larger masses remained in the 
principal passages, they might well have served to hold up the 
waters which came from the ice into this drainage channel and 
to convert it into a temporary lake. If this was the case, the 
ice-front, when being melted back past Nayatt point, was 
deeply indented there by a northeastwardly re-entrant angle, 
the southern side of which would be formed by an ice-lobe 
extending at least to Warwick neck. There is no evidence, 
however, excepting perhaps a moraine southeast of the angle 
supposed, that I have been able to find in the right plajes to 
support this hypothesis. It may, or it may not, be true; and 
therefore the same must be said of the alternative hypothesis 
of marine submergence by a depression of the land to the 
amount of about fifty feet. 
On the other hand, there seems to be good evidence, as 
noted on page 156, that during the immediately preceding 
Greenwich Cove stage of the glacial recession the land here 
stood fully as high as now. We have thus an independent 
ground for the assumption that the sand-])lain at Nayatt 
point was deposited in a glacial lake, being therefore no indi- 
cation of contemporaneous land depression and sul)mergence. 
