224 The American Geologist. April, 1902. 
ley of Mill Brook to the Norfolk basin in Wrentham; where, 
turning to the southwest, it presumably followed the narrow 
band of sedimentary rocks to the Narragansett basin, and Nar- 
ragansett bay. The other river, the Baggistere (named after 
Baggistere brook), had its source near that of the Populatic 
but flowed in an easterly drection, following the depression ex- 
tending from the mouth of Stop river along Mine brook to 
ure Neponset valley, and thence to Boston bay. 
Basin of the Lower Charles—Without the drainage of 
the basins of the middle and upper Charles the lower Charles 
would have been but a relatively insignificant stream, had it not 
received the drainage of a large area to the west which more 
than compensated for the loss on the south. It is practically 
certain that the preglacial Charles did not have its source, as 
might be expected, in the valley of Natick and Dover, but that 
it rose far to the northwest. A peculiarity of the Sudbury river 
is the fact that, although in the upper part of its course it 
flows directly towards the Boston basin to within five miles 
of its border, instead of taking the direct course of twenty 
miles to the sea across the softer basin rocks, it turns north- 
ward in the vicinity of Framingham to unite with the Assabet 
at Concord, forming the Concord river, which is tributary to 
the Merrimac at Lowell, and thence to the sea at Newbury- 
port, making a total distance from F ramingham of seventy-five 
miles. The natural explanation of this very unstable course 
is that between Concord and Cochituate the drainage has been 
reversed, and that in pre-Glacial time the river had its source 
near Concord, flowing southward to the Charles through a 
valley now indicated in part by the basins of Morse’s pond 
and Lake Waban. Further evidence that this is the course 
ef the preglacial Sudbury river may be summed up as follows: 
1. Absence of outcrops shows that between the Sudbury 
river west of Reeves hill and the Charles there is room for 
a buried valley over a mile wide. 
2. An artesian well bored just west of Wellesley and near 
the 160 foot contour went through 90 feet of sand and gravel 
without reaching bed-rock. 
3. The Sudbury river meadows widen southward. 
4. The Sudbury and its tributaries tend to converge 
toward the south rather than to the north. 
( 
( 
{ 
