Pleistocene of the Champlain Valley. — Baldwin. 173 
In Charlotte, 31 1. Philo and Mutton and Pease hills are sur- 
rounded by sand terraces at hights of 415 and 450 feet. Be- 
tween Mutton hill and the shore are three parallel ridges of 
the same night, 150 feet each, and standing about 30 feet 
above the plain, about a mile apart. No sections of these 
ridges could be found, but they seem to be sandy beaches, 
made to appear higher above the plain than they originally 
were, from the fact that the present streams have eroded the 
plain between them at least 1 5 feet. From Mutton hill east 
to central Hinesburgh the plain is cut by brooks flowing north 
to Shelburne bay, and" on either side of each - brook are broad 
sand terraces, three or four in number. The sand terraces of 
these brooks contain marine shells in Shelburne, as at Morse's 
and Shelburne Falls. The lower sand terraces along the 
brooks undoubtedly come from the re-washing -of the higher 
terraces, as the water fell to lower and lower levels. This is 
shown by the condition of the shells, which are generally in 
place in the (days, with valves together and very little broken, 
while in the sands of the lower stream terraces they are broken 
and separated. Shells are plowed up and dug up in post- 
holes at any point between Mutton hill and the shore, and 
they are said to occur in beds 4 or 5 inches thick, a little be- 
low the surface. The discovery of the bones of a whale 
(Beluga vermontana Thompson*) in the (days of this plain, 
ton-ether with shells of Saxicava and 3fdcoma, in 1849, was 
fully described in the Vermont report.! and needs no further 
mention. 
The township of Shelburne closely resembles Charlotte, our 
genera] (day level, broken here and there by outcrops of rock 
above that level: each outcrop shows evidence of having been 
an island, while the water held successively lower levels, by a 
series of encircling ten-aces. At Shelburne Falls and again at 
Morse's, near the railroad, are stratified sand deposits, con- 
taining Macom.a fusca, at L80 feet. In the north pari of 
Shelburne, near the township line, one mile east of Gov. Bar- 
stow':-, shells, which from description seem to be Macoma, are 
said to lie plowed up, 'it KM) feet. At this point a marble oil t - 
^Regarded by Sir J. William Dawson as the same with B.catodon, 
which is now frequent in the estuarine lower part of the St. Lawrence. 
(Canadian Ice Age, p. 268.) 
fVol. i. pp. 162-5. 
