Plates
[1. The Connecticut Valley as it is seen from Mt. Sugarloaf] Front. [2a. Air view of the ox-bow lake between Northampton and Mt. Tom] 4 [2b. Roches moutonnées of the Pelham Hills seen from Hadley] 4 [3a. Mt. Sugarloaf, a remnant of Triassic rocks disappearing grain by grain down the Connecticut River] 12 [3b. Mt. Monadnock, a hill surmounting the New England peneplain, seen from Mt. Lincoln] 12 [4a. A dinosaur walked from the raindrop marked surface at the right to a shallow pond at the left] 22 [4b. Volcanoes ejected much ash and many bombs to form the Granby tuff] 22 [5a. Columnar lava rests upon red sandstone in the cliffs at Greenfield] 32 [5b. Fissures were filled with liquid rock that became solid and bonded wall to wall at the Windsor Dam] 32 [6. View of the Holyoke Range from Mt. Lincoln] 52 [7a. View of the Deerfield River gorge emerging on valley lowland as seen from Mt. Sugarloaf] 58 [7b. View of the French King gorge as seen from the bridge] 58 [8a. View of Titan’s Piazza at Hockanum showing the columns resting upon the gently inclined sandstone] 60 [8b. View of the Springfield lowland from the Westfield Marble quarry] 60 [9a. The dinosaur track preserve at Smith’s Ferry near Holyoke] 66 [9b. Varved clays or calendar beds on river bank south of Hadley] 66 [10. View of the Deerfield gorge from the east summit of the Mohawk Trail] 92
Figures
[1. The Connecticut River undercuts the Hadley bank] 2 [2. Natural levees south of the Sunderland Bridge] 2 [3. Block diagram showing main features of central Massachusetts at the present time] 5 [4. Block diagram showing main features of central Massachusetts during recession of the Ice Sheet] 5 [5. Block diagram showing main features of central Massachusetts during excavation of the lowland] 13 [6. Block diagram showing main features of central Massachusetts after Triassic basins were filled] 13 [7. Map of Mount Toby showing gorges filled with conglomerate] 20 [8. Map showing agglomerate burying a fault scarp on Notch power line] 24 [9. Block diagram showing main features of central Massachusetts during volcanic stage] 27 [10. Block diagram showing the Triassic basins of central Massachusetts] 27 [11. Map of old volcanic region near Mount Hitchcock and west of the Notch] 29 [12. Block diagram showing topography during formation of the lead veins] 31 [13. Block diagram of region during Middle Ordovician time] 39 [14. Block diagram of region at end of Ordovician time] 39 [15. Block diagram of region during Devonian period] 39 [16. Block diagram of region during Carboniferous period] 41 [17. Block diagram of region in early Triassic time] 41 [18. Block diagram of region in late Triassic time] 41 [19. Block diagram of region at opening of Cenozoic era] 45 [20. Block diagram of region at the present time] 45 [21. Map showing location of interesting places] 53 [22. Meander scarps at edge of flood plain, Sunderland] 57 [23. Map of the Leverett lead veins] 65 [24. Diagrams showing development of Notch and Notch Mountain] 74
Introduction
In every region there is an evening drive which lures the city dweller from the cramped vistas of the office, the home, and the dingy streets to the limitless expanse of hills and valleys, where mental tension relaxes and vision broadens as the physical horizon expands and acquires depth. In less favored localities, the drive may be long and the relaxation short, but not so in the Connecticut Valley. Half an hour of travel, either to the east or to the west from any large community, provides an escape to the hills, where people, cars, houses, and all the minutiae of urban civilization are blurred on the canvas of upland and lowland.
Local pride and personal prejudice may proclaim one view superior to another; but the praise so liberally bestowed upon the heights beyond Westfield, the Mount Tom Reservation, the land called Goshen, Shelburne Summit, and many another site, merely bespeaks the rivalry of equally favored vantage points. Perhaps the trail to Pelham would not be singled out for special mention by the undiscriminating enthusiast, but the connoisseur of New England’s scenic beauty returns and follows it again and again. A good road may take some credit for its popularity, but there is a deeper cause than this which brings him back; for, if there is drama in scenery, he finds it here. The road leads out of Northampton, and from the graceful arch of the Coolidge Memorial Bridge he views the flood-scarred lowlands that border the river, and across the flat plain into Hadley he sees visible reminders that river and farmer periodically struggle over ownership of the land. Then a rise in the road constricts the view but offers a promise of something different. Ahead, rolling fields stretch to the beckoning hills beyond Amherst, but the hills appear and disappear in tantalizing cadence as the car tops each rise and drops into the ensuing hollow. Soon West Pelham comes into view, and the rise to the highland begins. Beside the road a brook tumbles into the valley; and as the car climbs the heights to Pelham, and miles of wooded land are suddenly spread before the eye, the wayfarer realizes that here is the dramatic climax to his trip and to the murmured story of the brook. But the long ridges reaching out to the north and to the south, the deep valleys between them, and the sky which meets the farthest ridge do not enclose the panorama. It has a fourth dimension—time—a dimension as limitless as the horizon.
With just a dash of imagination, the wayfarer may journey backward through time; through scenes of infinite variety; through countless years of unceasing change; through situations so different that he would scarcely have recognized his New England. The scarred plain of the river, the brook, the soil, the rocks, the upland and the valley,—all tell a fascinating and a logical, if surprising, geological tale. A detour down this fourth dimension promises as much interest as a journey through the other three.
Today and Yesterday
From the Coolidge Memorial Bridge the broad lowland seems to reach out in all directions towards the encircling hills. Far down the river, the distant bank rises a sheer thirty feet from the water and is high enough to surmount even the worst of floods. Yet each year this bank recedes as the unconsolidated sediment at its base is sapped by the stream and is carried away. Three times the river road has been moved back from the insatiable Connecticut, and today the main Hockanum highway takes the long route far from the water’s edge.