Books and periodicals supply dinner menus for the hostess and list
theatrical offerings for the habitué. Surely suggestions of places for a
picnic or an evening drive are equally in order. Experience, some of it
painful, soon reduces the number of pleasant picnic sites: poison ivy or
a deceptive bog may linger in the memory and automatically eliminate
some otherwise delightful spot. But places suitable to every taste lie
within the Connecticut Valley or along its fringing uplands. Some are
near the highways and others are on woodland trails; a few are
interesting for their immediate surroundings and many because of their
expansive view. Here is a landscape which can be appreciated without
leaving or stopping the car; but there is a sight which can be relished
only from a trail, or from a pinnacle accessible to the agile climber.
Drives satisfy some tastes; but places to stop, meditate, and conjure up
the past appeal to others. The Valley and its environs have something
for every temperament and every mood.
_Mount Lincoln in Pelham_
Mount Lincoln is remote enough from highways to offer some measure of
retreat, yet it is not discouragingly inaccessible. The summit rises
about 300 feet above the nearest road, which lies a mile away by
woodland trail. It is Pelham's highest eminence, and its height is
enhanced by a fire tower which affords a magnificent view in every
compass direction.
The gently undulating New England upland stretches off to the north and
east for miles. The innumerable hills which compose it integrate to form
a horizontal skyline, which suggests a flat erosional plane, originally
formed at, or near, the level of the sea. To the northeast Mount
Monadnock in New Hampshire rises prominently above the general level,
for its extremely resistant rock withstood reduction by weather and
water more effectively than the weaker bedrock on every side.
The valley lowland begins but three miles to the southwest. The range of
hills stretching away like beads on a string is the Holyoke Range. Mount
Toby, Mount Sugarloaf, and the Pocumtuck Hills are the prominences in
the lowland to the northwest. The lowland was eroded out of the New
England upland after the land was elevated far back in Tertiary time,
and the disintegrating rock was carried to the sea by the rivers. The
hills in the lowland were left where the rocks resisted destruction more
successfully than elsewhere, but they only approximate the level of the
upland of which they were once a part.
Mount Lincoln and the surrounding hills are strewn with boulders. Every
slope is dotted with large irregularly shaped rocks, many of which have
smoothed facets marred by minute scratches. The boulders were left by
the Great Ice Sheet when it melted off New England, and the scratches
were made when the ice dragged the boulders over hard rock surfaces.
These stones came down from the north, and among them you may recognize
types which you have seen in the ledges around Orange and Northfield.
Early Pelham settlers found the boulders as much in their way as the
trees; so they burned or used the trees, and they piled the stones in
long rows to fence their fields. Stone fences characterize all glaciated
regions, and here they follow the roadsides for miles, reaching to the
edge of the deposits in glacial Lake Hadley.
_Mount Toby_
"Let's go to Mount Toby" usually means to go to the camp ground along
Roaring Brook at the east base of the mountain, or to one of the sugar
camps on the west slope, or to the Sunderland Caves at the north end.
All of these places are worth knowing, but the view from the mountain
top deserves at least one trip, and the wood road from Roaring Brook is
replete with interesting sights.
[Illustration: Pl. 6. _View of the Holyoke Range from Mt. Lincoln._]
[Illustration: Fig. 21. _Map showing location of interesting
places._]
1. Davis pyrite mine
2. Plainfield manganese mine
3. Lithia spodumene pegmatite
4. Chesterfield tourmaline locality
5. Westfield marble quarry
6. Williamsburg galena vein
7. Hatfield lead mine
8. West Farms lead mine
9. Loudville lead mine
10. Westfield trap quarry
11. Bernardston magnetite mine
12. Gill dinosaur track quarry
13. Mount Toby
14. Sunderland Caves
15. Roaring brook
16. Whittemore's Ferry fish quarry
17. Mt. Sugarloaf
18. Leverett lead vein
19. Notch quarry
20. Northampton granite quarry
21. Titan's Piazza
22. Titan's Pier
23. Ox-bow lake
24. Smith's ferry dinosaur tracks
25. Varved clay pits
26. Mt. Grace
27. French King bridge
28. Mt. Lincoln
29. Pelham asbestos mine
The side road to Roaring Brook leaves the highway east of Mount Toby
just north of the old cemetery, and the camp site is on the west side of
the Central Vermont Railway tracks. The gray rocks east of the tracks
are part of the ancient mountains of Triassic time. Their lofty summits
have been worn away by the unceasing activity of weather and running
water, and they are now lower than the fans of waste which was
discharged from the ancient valleys. Roaring Brook is continuing the
work of erosion as it tumbles down from Mount Toby, and frost has
loosened the great boulders that lie on the mountainside.
The rock along Roaring Brook is very different from that east of the
railroad. It looks a great deal like concrete, with a large assortment
of aggregate materials mixed in with the cement. The rock is
conglomerate, a mass of coarse stones washed out of the ancient Triassic
mountains, deposited at their base and in contemporary stream valleys,
and then cemented during the ensuing ages. Many of the pebbles in the
conglomerate cannot be found in the old rocks east of the railroad
tracks. Actually these rocks change in character at different levels in
the uplands of today, and still higher changes which were present in
this mountain group during Triassic time have been destroyed, though the
record of their presence has been retained in the fragments which
compose the conglomerate.
The woodland trail starts up the mountain about 100 yards north of the
picnic grounds. The rock beside it is red granite, and the streams of
Triassic time flowed over it as they carried the gravel which now makes
the Mount Toby conglomerate. The latter first appears about 100 feet
uphill, and it is virtually the only rock exposed from this point to the
summit. Interspersed sandstone beds disintegrate easily and form quiet
pools and basins in the adjacent brook; the pools end a few feet
upstream where the water cascades over the edge of the next higher
conglomerate stratum.
Mount Toby's summit rises above any other eminence in central
Massachusetts east of Ashfield and south of Mount Grace near Northfield.
From it the entire country to the south appears low and flat, except for
the teeth of the Mount Holyoke Range and the long ridge extending
southward from Mount Tom. A slope rises westward from the lowland to
meet the edge of the flat New England upland along a line that passes
through Shelburne, Conway, Goshen, and Granville. East of Toby this same
upland comes so close that it seems but a step across to it.
Many peaks may be seen rising above the New England upland. The one far
to the east is Wachusett. Up there to the north-northeast are Monadnock
and Mount Grace. Over in the northwest are Stratton and Glastenbury in
Vermont, and much nearer and lower is Bald Mountain at Shelburne Falls.
Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, is almost due west.
The lowland was excavated after the New England upland was elevated, and
the main features which distinguish the present landscape were carved
out before the end of the Miocene epoch of Tertiary time. The high
points which surmount the upland are monadnocks which, like their
prototype Mount Monadnock, successfully resisted the ravages of time and
New England's changing but rigorous climate.
_The Sunderland Caves_
The Sunderland Caves are on the northwest side of Mount Toby, just a
short walk and an easy climb from State Highway 63. They penetrate a
cliff made of conglomerate overlying a shale which accumulated in a
Triassic lake. The shale makes the floor of the cave. Joints, forming a
right angle with the cliff, break the conglomerate into giant blocks.
Frost, smooth shale surfaces, and gravity have caused the two end pieces
to creep away from the other conglomerate blocks. The second block from
the end has fallen against the end block, forming a high-roofed cave
about 100 feet long.
Directly southwest of the lower entrance to the cave, the shale beds are
highly distorted along the borders of a trough-like mass of angular
conglomerate or breccia, in which boulders up to six feet in diameter
are numerous. It is believed to be the record of a Triassic landslide,
which avalanched down the mountain front immediately to the east, and
into the old lake at the mountain base. It plowed up the clays in the
lake bed, carried some of them away, and furrowed the others into the
crumpled forms that are clearly visible along the path to the caves.
_Mount Sugarloaf_
Mount Sugarloaf does not offer Mount Lincoln's retreat from crowds nor
Mount Toby's expansive landscape, but it is accessible, and it provides
an unrivaled view of the valley between South Deerfield and the Holyoke
Range. Its red sandstones and conglomerates rise almost sheer for 500
feet above the Sunderland-South Deerfield road. On the northwest and
southeast sides the cliffs are determined by nearly vertical joint
planes. During the Ice Age, the southward-moving glacier plucked away
the loosely attached blocks facing the South Deerfield and Sunderland
sections of the lowland, leaving Sugarloaf as a remnant between the
joint surfaces.
The great bites which the meandering Connecticut River has taken out of
the lowland are visible east of Sunderland village and south towards
Hatfield. Each arc in the edge of the scalloped flood plain is the
extremity of a meander loop which the wandering river carved in its bank
and then abandoned by breaking through the narrow base or tongue, as it
did at the Northampton ox-bow.
An area of low, rolling, sandy hills extends through the pine woods for
a mile southward from South Deerfield. The hills are dunes which formed
when the Connecticut was picking its channel across the newly exposed
and barren bed of glacial Lake Hadley.
[Illustration: Fig. 22. _Meander scarps form a margin to the
Connecticut River flood plain at Sunderland._]
The panorama from the west side of Mount Sugarloaf centers about the
deep gorge of the Deerfield River. The top of the gorge widens out into
a broad strath and affords a glimpse of the more remote upland. The
river, emerging from this canyon during post-glacial time, built a huge
delta into glacial Lake Hadley, and much of the delta still remains in
the terrace which is utilized by the Boston and Maine Railroad as it
descends into Greenfield.
_Turners Falls_
Rushing water has a fascination which was frankly recognized by the
highway engineers who made the parking place facing the Connecticut
where Route 2 passes along the north side of Turners Falls. Here the
river drops over a series of sandstone ledges into a deep and narrow
channel at the east base of the trap ridge. Waterfalls are not common in
rivers flowing through lowlands; they indicate disturbances of normal
stream development and sometimes change in course.
The Connecticut Lowland is old, but its ancient drainage lines were
buried by the deposits left in glacial Lake Hadley. The river's present
course was established upon these lacustrine sediments, and the inner
valley plain is excavated in them. Before entrenchment took place, the
south-flowing reach of the river above Millers Falls was deflected
westward across the lake plain by the delta of Millers River. It was
turned southward once again by the trap ridge near Turners Falls. The
river soon cut through the unconsolidated lake beds and found that it
was out of its pre-glacial channel. The delta of Millers River had
diverted the water from the old rock valley beneath the Montague sand
plain, across a rock divide, and into the pre-glacial valley of Falls
River. The lake-fill in Falls River has been almost completely removed,
and Turners Falls now mark the spot where the Connecticut pours over the
bank and into the channel of its pre-glacial tributary. The falls have
receded upstream several hundred feet and have cut a deep gash in the
Triassic rocks.
Pl. 7. _Gorges, in highland and lowland alike, were formed when the
rivers were superimposed on coherent rock._
[Illustration: a. _View of the Deerfield River gorge emerging on
valley lowland as seen from Mt. Sugarloaf._]
[Illustration: b. _View of the French King gorge as seen from the
bridge._]
Turners Falls are the product of a series of coincidences. First, the
ice sheet and Lake Hadley buried all established drainage lines and
forced the streams to adopt new routes over the bared lake bottom. While
the lake existed, Millers River threw a weak obstruction in the path of
the Connecticut, diverting it to that part of the lowland where one of
its pre-glacial tributaries had excavated a slender rock gorge along a
fault plane. The river washed the lake deposits out of the gorge,
exposed the old bank of Falls River, and was busily cutting a new gorge
back into this bank when the dam was constructed and its erosive
activities were suddenly arrested.
_The French King Bridge_
The highway from Greenfield to Athol and Fitchburg passes Turners Falls
and crosses the Connecticut River near Millers Falls by way of the
French King Bridge. Here the roadway is more than 130 feet above the
water level. A picnic ground and parking place at the west end of the
bridge make it a particularly attractive place to stop and enjoy the
view upstream towards Northfield.
The river occupies a narrow rock gorge for a mile north of the bridge,
but at that point the valley widens out. This entire section of the
river's course was established on the old bed of glacial Lake Hadley;
but after the unconsolidated deposits were washed away, the stream found
itself flowing along the weak contact between the Triassic conglomerate
on the west bank and the metamorphic rocks of the highlands on the east
bank. The river deepened its channel on the weak contact zone and made
the scenic cut over which the bridge was built.
The pre-glacial valley lies beneath the sand plain east of the river.
Millers River crosses this old valley between Millers Falls and its
confluence with the Connecticut, at the east end of the bridge. The
rapids at the junction can be traced to the ridge of crystalline rock
between the east bank of the present Connecticut and the west bank of
the pre-glacial Connecticut. The resistant ledge forms a barrier which
Millers River has not yet eroded to its grade.
The conglomerate beds on the west wall of the gorge dip steeply eastward
towards the river and end against the crystallines. The beds were
originally laid down with a gentle westward inclination. They were
tilted steeply in the opposite direction against the crystallines by
faulting, which elevated the ranges and pressed down the adjacent basin
during Triassic time.
_Titan's Piazza and Titan's Pier_
Not so long ago, giants and the devil received the credit or the blame
for such oddities in nature as rock-masses broken into six-sided
columns. Ireland has its Giant's Causeway, and Yellowstone National Park
its Devil's Post-pile. Titan's Piazza and Titan's Pier were likewise
attributed to activities of the leader of fallen angels and were given
names appropriate to such an origin by the early settlers. Dr.
Hitchcock, in characteristic fashion, undertook the task of correcting
the errors of puritanical psychology by renaming these places during one
of the early Mountain Day trips from Amherst College. The entire college
body sojourned to the west end of the Holyoke Range to hear the cliffs
renamed and their true nature explained.
Devil or no devil, those huge columns had a hot origin. The dark rock in
them is part of the main lava sheet which stretches across the valley in
the Holyoke Range and swings southward in the Nonotuck--Mount Tom Range.
The lava poured out of a series of volcanoes which were strung out along
a fissure about three miles to the east, and the molten mass had a
temperature of 1200° to 1300° C. The hot lava radiated its heat to the
sandstone below and to the air above; and, as it cooled, it contracted
like any other substance. The shrinkage was so great that series of
cracks formed in regular pattern, with each crack perpendicular to the
cooling surface. The stresses producing the fissures were equal in all
directions and would have made circular cracks and cylindrical columns;
but cylinders have non-cylindrical spaces between them, and the pattern
in which the columns are most nearly cylindrical and yet completely
occupy all space is hexagonal. So contraction broke the lava into
hexagonal columns perpendicular to the cooling surface. The columns are
parallel where the lava floor is regular but are curved or radial where
the floor is rolling.