218 The American Geologist. April, 1902. 
GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE CHARLES RIVER 
IN MASSACHUSETTS.* 
By Freperick G. CLAPP, Boston, Mass. 
PLATES XIII, XIV, XV AND XVI. 
The extremely circuitous course of the Charles river, to- 
gether with the great complexity of its drainage system and 
its apparent disregard for the geological structure of the re- 
gion, gives it a somewhat special interest. Lying in the south- 
eastern part of the state of Massachusetts, within the area 
covered by the Blackstone, Framingham, Dedham, and Boston 
sheets of the government topographical map, it has a drain- 
age area of about 290 square miles, and a total length, follow- 
ing the meanders, of sixty-nine miles; although its mouth 
is only twenty-five miles in a direct line from its source. 
The most impressive feature of the river, as represented 
on the map (plate 13), is its very unusual deviousness. Rising 
in the town of Hopkinton, it flows for the first few miles al- 
most directly south. But at Bellingham it bends abruptly 
to the east, and then to the north, taking a retrograde course 
as far as Medway. From this point it rums east as far as 
Rockville, and thence north and northwest to Sherborn. Tak- 
ing here a more northerly course to South Natick, it there turns 
to the east, as if to make a short cut to the sea; but at Dedham 
it bends sharply backward and flows directly away from the 
sea as far as Newton Lower falls, from which point it runs 
north to Waltham, and then east to Boston bay. 
The principal objects of this investigation have been: 
First—To determine as completely as possible the life 
history of the river. 
Second.—To explain why the river follows its present 
devious course rather than a more direct one. For instance, 
why does it bend north at Bellingham, instead of continuing 
southward to Narragansett bay, the shortest course to the sea? 
Why, when it has followed a northeasterly course for a dozen 
miles, does it bend suddenly to the northwest, instead of con- 
— _— 
*This paper is an abridgment of a thesis study done by the writerin the 
Geological Lepartment of the Massachusets Institute of Technology, and pub- 
lished in the Technology Quarterly, vol. xiv, numbers 3 and 4, (1901). The 
thesis was prepared under the supervision of PROFRssok W.O,. Crosny. The 
cuts for the illustrations shown here are kindly loaned by the Technology 
Quarterly. 
