26 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
by ridges, former sand bars. And so recent are these changes that 
the entire process is clearly demonstrated. The material of the sand 
bars and channels is coarse gravel. The deserted river channels are 
not well defined with flat bottoms and steep sides, but the plain is 
undulating. The entire surface is swept at flood, and further de¬ 
posits may tend to obliterate these irregularities. The undulations 
are no greater than appear upon many of our broad flood-plain 
areas. At Hadley, the Connecticut at its great right-hand meander 
has left a series of islands on the up-stream side of the down-stream 
portion of the bend, which give to the plain an undulating surface, 
as pointed out by Emerson (’ 98 ). In describing the Sunderland, 
Hatfield, Hadley, and Northampton meadows, Emerson says: “The 
plain that seems so perfectly level when seen from above, proves on 
closer inspection to be made up of a series of broad, low ridges, like 
the long, low swell that comes in on the coast after a distant storm 
and the curved grooves which separate these ridges run approximately 
parallel to the bank of the stream but with greater or less curve. 
This is due to the composite nature of the terrace itself. Each 
of these low bars represents one of the elements out of which the ter¬ 
race is built and has passed through the stages of bar, island, and 
‘glacis terrace’ 1 as it has added itself to the previously formed 
plain, while the groove on the outside of each ridge, (out from the 
river) is the unfilled remnant of the waterway which separated the 
island from the former shore. 
“The surface of the broad terrace plain north of North Hadley and 
extending up to Sunderland shows this most strikingly, and when seen 
from the hill just north of Hatfield, each separate island of which the 
terrace was built by the westward swing of the river can be picked out.” 
With reference to the topography of the meadow at Brattleboro,— 
the area is wide in extent, and from a distance appears like a level plain. 
A careful survey, however, shows elevations and depressions, com¬ 
paratively distinct to-day, notwithstanding the fact that the entire 
surface has been ploughed and re-ploughed for agricultural purposes. 
At the base of the Retreat scarp is the brook drainage characteristic 
of many such flood plains. A closer examination of the high and low 
areas reveals the existence of a series of valleys, representing channels 
1 Hitchcock, “ Surface geojogy,” 1860, p. 5, 
