Cornell University Library 
 F 74.W9P4 
 
 The physical geography of Worcester, Mas 
 
 3 1924 014 020 840 
 
THE 
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 WORCESTEE, MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
I Cornell University 
 J Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014020840 
 
THE 
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 
 
 or 
 
 WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 JOSEPH H. PERKY, 
 
 Fellow of Geological Society of Amebica. 
 
 ■#ITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 BY 
 
 J. CHAUNCEY LYFORD. 
 
 Published by the Wobcester Natural Histoey Society, 
 
 ■Wobcesteb, Mass. 
 
 1898. 
 
OFFICERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WORCESTER NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 
 
 1897-98. 
 
 Board of Directors. 
 
 President, MEERICK BEMIS, M.D. 
 
 Secretary and SuperintendenUof Museum, 
 HERBERT D. BRAMAN. 
 
 Treasurer, HENRY BILLINGS. 
 
 WILLIAM H. RAYMENTON, M.D. 
 
 FRANKLIN P. RICE. 
 
 ARTHUR W. PARMELEE. 
 
 WILLIAM F. ABBOT. 
 
 WOUCESTER, MASS. 
 rilESS OF CIIAULES HAMILTON, 
 

 n' V 
 
 
 ::iM:V/l 
 
 ' ' ill''*' 
 
 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER.- 
 
 Standing at the summit of Vernon Street hill and looking 
 westward and northwestward, we overlook the deep valley 
 bordered on one side by Millbury Street and on the other 
 by Southbridge Street, and see beyond the higher land, 
 along the crest of which is Main Street from May Street 
 to New Worcester hill; and, still more distant, rising from 
 this, a rolling, billowy area looking as if the surface of the 
 earth had been raised into great dome-like waves, and there 
 transfixed ; and finally we see, in the distant background, 
 the highlands of Leicester and Paxton, along the summit 
 of which we trace the horizon with its upward curve show- 
 ing us the outline of Asnebumskit. Or, again, if we stand 
 on an open spot on Belmont Street hill and look westward, 
 we overlook the valley beneath followed by the Boston & 
 Maine and Fitchburg Railroads, and see beyond the same 
 billowy landscape with the Paxton and Leicester highlands 
 for their background. As we look at this beautiful and 
 varied landscape, confusing though it may seem, we may 
 justly ask what these highlands, these valleys, these dome- 
 like hills, these plains, these meadows, these streams, these 
 ponds and lakes mean. What is the story they tell us ? 
 For in nature there is no chaos, everything has its meaning, 
 if only we have eyes to see, and the perception to under- 
 stand the revelation 
 
 In studying the physical geography of Worcester, let us 
 begin near the northeast corner. Standing at the crossing 
 
 1 The reader should have before him while reading this the Worcester and 
 Webster sheets of the topographic map of Massachusetts. These may be ob- 
 tained from the U. S. Geological Survey or from the Commissioners of the 
 Topographic Map of Massachusetts, 11 Mt. Yernou St., Boston, Mass., at five 
 cents a sheet. 
 
of the Boston & Maine Railroad, near the Summit station, 
 we are nearly 640 feet above the sea-level. We then pass 
 to the south, following Burncoat Street, ascending a hill at 
 first somewhat steep and then more gentle in its rise, until 
 we are more than 700 feet above the sea. Looking to the 
 left where the view is unobstructed, or going to the eastern 
 edge of the hill, we may trace the course of Poor Farm 
 Brook, winding its way down a quite steep slope of 60 feet 
 to the mile, until its waters become a part of Lake Quin- 
 sigamond. On the right, though generally hidden, is the 
 upper course of Mill Brook. Rising in the southern part 
 of Holdcn, at an altitude of 800 feet above the sea, it flows 
 for about a mile to the southeast, then follows the Boston & 
 Maine Railroad, is increased by the waters of North Pond, 
 and forms the succession of ponds of which Salisbury is the 
 last. The rains falling on the eastern slope of this hill that 
 we are traversing finally flow into Lake Quinsigamond, 
 and those falling on the western slope go to swell the waters 
 of Mill Brook. We are on the divide between these two 
 water-courses. Continuing south along Burncoat Street to 
 Adams Square, we descend about 120 feet ; we then follow 
 Lincoln Street to the east for about half a mile and turn 
 into the fields ; again ascending we mount to the top of the 
 hill on the eastern slope of which is the State Lunatic Hos- 
 pital. We are now 760 feet above the sea. Standing on 
 the open ground, we look around. The eye, following the 
 horizon, sees almost the perfect circumference of a circle, 
 except where a few heights like Asnebumskit and Wachu- 
 sett produce a convexity in the line. And if we descend 
 on any side of the hill, though the horizon constantly 
 changes its position, it is still this regular lino. There is 
 only one surface that will always give the circumference of 
 a circle for the horizon, and that is a plain. In other 
 words, in spite of the various inequalities in the earth's 
 surface noticed as we walk or ride from Worcester to the 
 neighboring towns, the land of Central Massachusetts is an 
 
approximate plain, or peneplain as Prof. William M. Davis 
 calls it. 
 
 But no sooner do we reach the summit of Millstone Hill 
 than we begin to descend the southern slope to Belmont 
 Street. Here is Bell Pond, formerly called Bladder Pond, 
 one of the three natural ponds of Worcester. We con- 
 tinue directly south from Bell Pond, the slope at times 
 being almost precipitous, and descend in all 280 feet into 
 the narrow gorge, through which Shrewsbury Street and 
 the Boston & Albany Eailroad enter the city. As you have 
 many times passed through this on your way to and from 
 the beautiful lake beyond, have you ever asked yourself the 
 question : — " Why is there this sudden break between 
 Millstone Hill and the highland south of the Boston & 
 Albany Railroad?" Thus the very landscape about us is 
 teeming with questions. On crossing the railroad, con- 
 tinuing to the south, we immediately ascend a steep slope, 
 and at the highest points on this hill find ourselves 700 feet 
 above the sea, about 60 feet below the highest part of Mill- 
 stone Hill. Over the crest of this hill passes Plantation 
 Street, which we follow, and thence cross to Providence 
 Street hill about 100 feet lower. But here the elevated 
 land, which north of the Boston & Albany Railroad is a 
 ridge about half a mile wide at the top and two miles wide 
 at its base, becomes broad and triangular, gradually sloping 
 on the east to Lake Quinsigamond and Quinsigamond 
 River, and on the west and southwest sloping quite abruptly 
 to the valley of Mill Brook and the Blackstone. This 
 broad area has many rounded hills and is a rolling upland 
 drained by many brooks, the longer and larger of which 
 flow to the east and southeast because of the longer slopes. 
 
 But the most noticeable fact about this region is the 
 steep slope on the west, there being a fall of fully 160 feet 
 from the crest of Vernon Street to the level of the Black- 
 stone at Quinsigamond Village. But again the land rises 
 on the other side of the river 260 feet to the summit of 
 
6 
 
 Pakachoag Hill. There seems to have been left here in 
 this high land, a gateway through which the Blackstone 
 might pass to the south. But continuing to the south, we 
 follow the crest of Pakachoag Hill, 700 feet above the sea 
 level, across the Worcester line into Auburn. Nor does 
 this high land end here. It is continued in the high land 
 east of the Norwich & Worcester Kailroad and Lake Chau- 
 bunagungamaug through Auburn, Oxford and Webster. 
 This high land extends east to the Blackstone Valley and 
 constitutes a broad plateau. 
 
 We have thus, in detail, outlined a marked ridge of land 
 crossing Worcester from north to south approximately, and 
 a noticeable characteristic in it is that frequently we find the 
 ledges appearing through the loose material that generally 
 covers them. At the Summit, the deep cut of the Boston 
 & Maine Railroad exposes the ledge ; along Burncoat 
 Street, especially as we approach Adams Square, ledges 
 frequently appear ; Millstone Hill shows the underlying 
 ledge everywhere; the hills over which Plantation, Provi- 
 dence and Vernon Streets pass have frequently but a thin 
 coating of earth, which is ineffectual in concealing the firm 
 ledges beneath; and so finally with Pakachoag Hill, the 
 ledge outcrops directly back of Holy Cross College, at the 
 summit of the hill, and to the south large areas of ledge 
 are entirely destitute of covering. But it will not be 
 necessary to follow this farther to the south ; suffice it to 
 say, that this ridge and the plateau into which it broadens 
 to the south, are throughout composed of ledge with a thin 
 coating of loose material spread over the rock-surface. 
 In other words, outcrops of ledge show us that this ridge 
 traversing the eastern part of Worcester, rising 200 feet 
 and more above the valley of Mill Brook and 300 feet and 
 more above Lake Quinsigamond, is a ridge of rock having 
 but a thin covering of loose earth over the rock. 
 
 In like manner we may trace rocky highlands along the 
 western border of Worcester. Starting with Asnebumskit, 
 
X 
 H 
 
rising 1400 feet above the sea, we may follow a border of 
 high land elevated 1000 feet above the sea, ledges appear- 
 ing every now and then, to the south, through Cherry Val- 
 ley, on to Growl and Prospect Hills in Auburn and Rocky 
 Hill in Oxford and other hills in Webster and Dudley to 
 the Connecticut line. But these hills do not constitute a 
 ridge. They are the eastern border of the highlands of 
 Paxton, Leicester, Charlton and Dudley ; and these high- 
 lands constitute a broad plateau, as did the highlands of 
 Millbury, Sutton and Douglas to the east. The western 
 border of the eastern plateau and the eastern border of the 
 western plateau are approximately parallel ; and through 
 Auburn, Oxford and Webster are a mile or a little more 
 distant from each other. Were it not for the valley sepa- 
 rating these two plateaus, — the valley followed by the 
 Norwich & Worcester Railroad through Auburn, Oxford, 
 and Northern Webster, — these two plateaus would be con- 
 tinuous, and constitute one and the same plateau. The real 
 relation of these two plateaus will be made clear before we 
 are through with this study ; let us now return in our 
 thoughts to Worcester. 
 
 Between the Millstone-Pakachoag rock-ridge on the east 
 and the high rockv land of the Paxton highlands on the 
 west, there are within Worcester many elevations, some 
 rivalling in height the loftiest points of the eastern ridge. 
 Let us carefully examine these hills. They appear very 
 abundantly in the western part of Worcester. They con- 
 stitute the rolling, billowy surface seen as we look to the 
 west from Vernon Street hill. They are uniform in appear- 
 ance, having the shape of a dome or of an elongated dome. 
 Of these hills Newton Hill is the type. These hills are 
 frequently grouped in clusters, as in the region north and 
 northeast of Peat Meadow, or in rows, as in the region 
 northvyest of Barber's Crossing. Their surfaces are smooth 
 and regular as if laid out by the landscape gardener. They 
 vary in height from 50 feet to more than 200 feet above 
 
8 
 
 the planes of their bases ; and their circular or elliptical 
 bases vary from one fourth of a mile to a mile or a little 
 more in diameter. These hills are not, however, limited 
 to the western part of Worcester. The hills in a row, of 
 which Mt. Ararat near North Worcester is the southern- 
 most, are such. They also occur on the top of the eastern 
 rock ridge. Green Hill and the dome-like hills clustered 
 about it belong with these. But as Newton Hill is the 
 type let us study it in detail. Its base is nearlj'^ circular ; 
 it rises 160 feet above the surrounding lowlands ; it has 
 the smooth, regular sides and the almost perfect dome- 
 shape. As we walked around its base while the workmen 
 were digging into its sides, at no point did we see ledge 
 projecting. As the trench was dug for the sewer through 
 Pleasant Street, ledge was found only at a considerable 
 depth. Also as we go up on the sides of the hill, we 
 observe many rock masses, — some lying in one position, 
 some in another, some of one kind of rock, some of 
 another, — without any regularity or uniformity ; and a 
 little careful observation convinces us that these are only 
 rock fragments, not outcroppings of the solid ledge. Into 
 one of these hills east of Plantation Street the workmen 
 have cut many feet for material out of which to make 
 brick, and they there show us exactly what we should find 
 if we dissected Newton Hill, — no ledge from top to bottom, 
 nor from side to side. We are as sure of this as if the 
 drill had penetrated from the foot of the flag-staff to the 
 base, and from Highland Street to Pleasant Street. What 
 we say of Newton Hill is true of these many dome-like 
 hills of Worcester. But if they are not composed of ledge, 
 of what are they composed ? As these hills are dissected 
 by various cuttings for streets, railroads, and the like, 
 there are found rock fragments of various kinds and of 
 all sizes from an inch or less in diameter to the great 
 masses many feet through, which the untrained eye miwht 
 mistake for ledge. Those of the lighter shades are gener- 
 
9 
 
 ally of granite, often containing needles or crystals of black 
 tourmaline. These rook fragments are generally rounded 
 in form and some are very large. You will also observe 
 some of a reddish drab color. These will be quite gener- 
 ally angular in shape, not of large size, and will break into 
 layers when struck by the hammer. They have a very 
 fine, granular structure ; and the material of which they 
 are composed is very hard. This rock is called quartzite ; 
 and if we compare it with the rock exposed in the sewer 
 trench of Pleasant Street at the very base of the hill, — 
 in fact the rock on which the hill rests, — we shall see that 
 the two are identical. A third variety, that you will see, 
 will be of a drab to black color, of a scaly structure, 
 breaking into scaly masses presenting shining surfaces, not 
 granular, but as if a large number of minute flakes had 
 been pressed together. This rock is called argillite. Next 
 you may notice a rock resembling the second quite closely, 
 but coarser in grain, the little scales large enough to be seen, 
 the color varying from a reddish gray to a faded-brownish 
 gray, presenting many glistening surfaces, breaking in 
 thin slabs or sheets, from an inch to several inches thick. 
 This, because of the use sometimes made of such a rock, is 
 called a whetstone mica schist. Besides these you may 
 find rounded fragments of trap-rock, very rusty on the 
 outside, of some dark shade of gray within, and of a fine 
 to coarse crystalline structure. Or you may find masses 
 of a light drab mica schist crowded with garnets. 
 
 All of these and many more rock fragments will be found 
 imbedded in a somewhat fine clay-like substance. This, 
 however, proves on closer examination to be ground rock, 
 not clay, which is decayed rock. With this ground rock 
 is also much sand. Out of such a mixture have Newton 
 Hill and these other dome-like hills been built. 
 
 But the kind of material in these hills is not the only 
 fact to be noticed. This material is not arranged in any 
 order or regularity — the coarse and fine lie together, they 
 
10 
 
 do not constitute layers as do the sands and clays deposited 
 by currents of water. There may be the great rounded 
 fragment of granite several feet in diameter and all around 
 it only the fine particles of powdered rock. Should we try 
 to dig into one of these hills, or watch the workman as he 
 does, we should quickly notice the remarkable hardness of 
 the material. So hard is it that the steam-shovel is broken 
 against it ; so tough is it that the blast shoots from it as 
 from the mouth of the cannon ; and so firm is it that the 
 builder does not hesitate to rear the nine stories of marble 
 and granite upon it as the foundation. But if we examine 
 many of these hills into which cuttings have been made we 
 shall observe in some of them a rudimentary cleavage that 
 has commenced to be developed. This is best observed 
 where the bank exposed by a cutting has been acted on by 
 rain and wind ; the softer parts are worn away more 
 rapidly, and so the firmer, more resisting parts project 
 beyond the general surface. 
 
 These facts — the hardness, firmness, and incipient cleav- 
 age — indicate that this material has been subjected to great 
 pressure, which has welded together these loose particles 
 and masses of rock. 
 
 Another fact will not escape our notice if we study the 
 dissected dome-like hill on the east side of Plantation 
 Street. As we examine the masses of rock we shall 
 observe that many of them are rounded, but not so 
 smoothly and perfectly as are the pebbles in the brook bed 
 or along the pebbly beach ; and we shall see that these 
 rounded fragments are quite generally scratched, even 
 grooved, especially on what we should call the upper and 
 lower surfaces ; and these scratches and grooves are 
 parallel to each other and to the longest diameter of the 
 rock. This appearance is just what would have been pro- 
 duced if the rock had been held in a somewhat yieldino' 
 medium and then rubbed in one direction over rock sur- 
 faces. And there is something that exactly matches this. 
 
11 
 
 If, in our study and walks about Worcester, we observe 
 carefully the surfaces of the ledges, we shall tind that they 
 too are rounded, scratched and grooved; when there is a 
 projection in the rock surface the northern edge is much 
 more rounded than is the southern ; the grooves and 
 scratches are parallel to each other and have a direction 
 generally, as we look along them to the north, of a few 
 degrees — 10 or 15 — to the east of the north. These 
 scratches and grooves may be well studied on the northeast 
 side of the hill over which Pla,ntation Street extends. 
 This rock is a soft rock, and has not decayed where cov- 
 ered ; and as the ledges are exposed in digging cellars, 
 laying out of streets and the like, what we refer to may be 
 seen in perfection. But not alone on the surfaces of the 
 softer ledges do we find these. The hard, resisting granite 
 of Millstone Hill and the gneiss at the Ballard quarries 
 at Quinsigamond present exactly the same appearances. 
 These scratches and grooves may best be seen on these 
 surfaces when the sun is low and casts slight shadows. 
 These marks are not, then, confined to any particular kind 
 of rock, nor are they confined to any particular locality. 
 They may be found in any part of the city where there is 
 a fresh, clean ledge surface, and in the valley as well as 
 on the hills. 
 
 These then are the facts we wish to associate in our 
 study of the dome-like hills so abundant here in Worcester. 
 They contain rock fragments, only a part of which at the 
 most could possibly have come from the underlying ledges ; 
 and the others, many in number, must have come from 
 some other ledges. The fine material of their composition 
 is ground rock, not decayed rock. This coai'se and 
 fine material is distributed without any order, and is very 
 firm and compact, and frequently shows incipient cleavage 
 or fissility, indicating that the whole has been subjected to 
 enormous pressure. Many of the rock fragments are 
 rounded, polished, scratched, and grooved parallelly with 
 
12 
 
 their longest diameters. The ledges beneath are also 
 rounded, polished, scratched, and grooved as by some 
 agent moving over them from a direction 10-15° east of 
 north, and rubbing their surfaces with coarse and fine rock 
 material. 
 
 With these facts in mind there are some things that we 
 may assert in regard to these hills. They are not domes 
 of decayed rock, as if the underlying ledge had been the 
 hill and this rock had simply decayed and crumbled into 
 this loose material, as the ledges have decayed and crum- 
 bled in more southern latitudes. A large part of this rock 
 material must have been transported, because the rock 
 fragments do not match the underlying ledges, and there- 
 fore could not possibly have come from them. But if we^ 
 compare these rock fragments with the ledges in Holden 
 and other towns to the north and northeast, we find the 
 ledges that they are like. These must then have been 
 transported by some agent from those ledges in Holden, 
 West Boylston, Stei'ling and other towns to the north and 
 northeast and deposited here in Worcester, thus building 
 up these hills. ^ 
 
 Such are the facts that stand out with special promi- 
 nence as we attempt to read the story of these httls, and 
 these must be explained if we hope to read the story aright. 
 Of the various agents that transport rock material — the 
 currents of air, the currents of water upon the land and in 
 the sea, the floating icebergs, and the great rivers of ice, 
 the glaciers draining the region of eternal snow and ice — 
 
 1 Or if you wish to have this transportation of roclf material from the north 
 demonstrated within a smaller area, go to the south of Millstone Hill and note 
 the abundance of granite fragments from that hill. This granite is unique, 
 and none of the granite from other granite areas is to be mistaken for it. The 
 stone walls are composed of it; the bowlders of the fields are largely of it; 
 and if all these were returned to the hill it would be quite an interesting 
 problem to work out how much its altitude would be increased. Then walk 
 through Plantation Street around to a corresponding distance to the north of 
 the hill and note how rare are the Millstone Hill granite bowlders, and even 
 these may be seen to have been artificially transported. 
 
13 
 
 the only one that explains or accounts for all these facts "is 
 the lust. It polishes, makes round, scratches and grooves 
 the rock surface on the hills and mountains as well as those 
 in the valley over which it moves, by means of the rock 
 fragments, sand and powdered rock imbedded in its foot, 
 which material in turn is ground, polished, scratched and 
 grooved until it finds a resting place within and beneath the 
 ice, or at the glacier's end, or is swept away by the stream 
 flowing from the melting ice. It deposits material promis- 
 cuously at its end and beneath itself, and then, overriding 
 it or resting upon it, compresses and hardens it. In fact, 
 the work done by glaciers exactly agrees with the tracks 
 left by the agent which brought and deposited these dome- 
 like hills of Worcester. Thus, step by step, by this 
 evidence here in Worcester are we brought to the startling 
 conclusion that Worcester was once beneath a thickness of 
 ice suflScient to do all this work, and, from study in other 
 parts of New England, it is believed that this ice was not 
 less than a few thousand feet thick, enclosing and overlap- 
 ping perhaps even the highest mountains in New England. 
 It here moved from the north, or a few degrees east of 
 north. Within and beneath such a thickness of ice were 
 these hills accumulated and by such a pressure was their 
 material compacted. 
 
 These dome-like hills, called drumlins from the Gaelic 
 " druim," a ridge, are then foreigners or strangers here, 
 if we consider the rock surface the real surface of Worces- 
 ter ; and, if we would have a perfect picture in our minds 
 of this surface, we must remove them. We shall, as we do 
 this, deprive Worcester of much of her beauty and variety 
 of landscape, but we shall be led to other and more ancient 
 stories. But these drumlins are not the only signs and 
 proofs that the ice sheet has left of its occupancy of this land. 
 There were dumped into the many streams within and be- 
 neath the melting ice great loads of powdered rock, sand and 
 gravel. These, the streams being powerless to remove, were 
 
14 
 
 deposited in the valleys followed by these streams, filling 
 these valleys to a greater or less extent where they were not 
 already filled by drumlins and like material. These, too, 
 then we must remove in thought as we seek to picture the 
 rock surface. There would then remain on the east the 
 rock ridge already described, including Millstone and Paka- 
 choag hills ; on the west would be the high border of 
 the rocky highlands of Paxton and Leicester; between 
 would be a broad valley with slight inequalities about 500 
 feet above sea-level, 200 feet below the eastern ridge, and 
 500 feet below the western border, gradually sloping from 
 the highlands of Holden to the south. But this valley is 
 not simple ; it is divided into two, which unite in the 
 southern part of Worcester. Commencing with New 
 Worcester Hill, there is a rock ridge rising 80 feet or more 
 above the valley to the southeast, and 40 feet or more above 
 the surface of Goes' pond, and its crest is marked by 
 Woodland and Queen streets. But this, which may be 
 called a ridge, broadens to the north into a triangular area 
 not marked by noticeable elevations north of Oread Hill, 
 but traced by the outcropping ledges beneath Antiquarian 
 Hall, in Pleasant street just west of the junction with High- 
 land, in Chandler street just east of its junction with May, 
 and in Pratt street near Chad wick Square, as it gradually 
 rises up to the highlands. of Holden. This triangular area 
 is bordered on the east by Mill Brook valley, and on the 
 west by Tatnuck Brook valley. Let us examine carefully 
 the beds of these streams. We find, where the current is 
 rapid, gravel and pebbles ; where slower, sand ; and where 
 very slow, only mud or clay. Rarely if ever do these 
 brooks rest directly on the underlying ledge. And if we 
 dig down into these sands and gravels we find them strati- 
 fied or in layers. In fact, these are some of the sands and 
 gravels from the glacier, deposited by currents of water, 
 hence their stratified structure ; and these brooks, wearin"- 
 away and carrying off during the subsequent time, have 
 
15 
 
 not been able to lay bare to any extent the ledge under- 
 neath. Let us then in imagination remove these gravels 
 and sands, and we find that Mill and Tatnuck brooks would 
 be following much wider and deeper valleys than they now 
 occupy. Exactly the depth of these sands and gravels we 
 are not able to state, and undoubtedly there is considerable 
 variation in their thickness, as there is in the thickness 
 of the unstratified glacial deposits upon the hills ; but, if 
 we estimate their thickness at from 25 to 50 feet, we prob- 
 ably shall not far exceed the truth, and it would not be 
 surprising if our estimates were too small. Clearing out 
 these gravels then, as the brooks will in time, conditions 
 remaining as they now are, and we are able now to form a 
 clear picture of the rock surface of Worcester. A rock 
 ridge on the east, high rocky border on the west, a much 
 lower triangular area in the middle having a steep slope of 
 75 to 150 feet to the east into 'the ancient Mill Brook 
 valley, and a more gentle and longer slope to the west into 
 the valley of the ancient Tatnuck Brook. The ancient Mill 
 Brook valley has a steep slope up the rock ridge on the 
 east 250 to 300 feet ; and the ancient Tatnuck Brook valley 
 has also a steep slope on the west up to the Paxton- 
 Leicester highlands of 550 to 600 feet. These two valleys 
 join at a point south of New Worcester hill. 
 
 Worcester then, in spite of her many hills, is really 
 situated in a broad rock valley with these two smaller 
 valleys on either side, which join, forming only one in the 
 extreme southern part. We may now ask ourselves, 
 whence these minor valleys and this broader valley. 
 The mind may answer, if it is not acquainted with geologi- 
 cal facts, that these ridges and valleys are due to the folding 
 of the rock strata, the ridges being the crests, and the val- 
 leys the hollows of the folds. But as we examine the 
 ledges or rock strata from the eastern side of Worcester to 
 the western, we cannot find any such folding of the rocks 
 beneath ; we cannot find any crests for the ridges, or hoi- 
 
16 
 
 lows for the valleys ; but the rocks consist of layer after 
 layer, stratum after stratum, extending 30°, or so, east of 
 north, by 30°, or so, west of south, and tipped up from a 
 horizontal position 40° — 60°, and even 75°, with the slant 
 toward the west. As you walk across Worcester from east 
 to west, you are really stepping on the edges of these 
 strata. In such strata standing on edges are these valleys 
 sunk, sometimes parallel to the strata and sometimes across 
 them at a small angle, now in the harder rock and now in 
 the softer. We cannot believe, then, that these valleys are 
 due to the folding of the rock strata ; neither is there any 
 evidence to show that the valleys have resulted from the 
 breaking of the earth's surface and the uplifting of the 
 ridges and highlands, and the downsinking of the valleys. 
 How then have they been formed? 
 
 Last night there was a heavy shower ; the rain fell in 
 torrents ; the waters w^t rushing and tearing down the 
 hill through the gutters. This morning the sky is cloud- 
 less ; the sun rose in all its magnificence and glory ; there 
 isn't the tiniest brooklet in the gutter to tell of the roaring 
 torrent of the night before ; but I notice at quite regular 
 intervals along the unpaved street, leading from the middle 
 to the gutter, a large number of little valleys. These are 
 dry now, nor did I stand out in the rain to watch each 
 little brook as it swept along particle after particle, and 
 pebble after pebble, thus converting the smooth street into 
 a series of valleys with the ridges between. Yet I am con- 
 fident that this is just what took place. As you watch the 
 madly roaring mountain torrent, swollen by the waters from 
 the melting snows, pushing and rolling and tumbling along 
 with it sand, gravel, pebbles, even bowlders, do you doubt 
 whence the gulch with its steep sides, down which this 
 stream rushes ? Neither has the geologist as he studies the 
 canyon of the West, and sees at its bottom the rapid river 
 laden with sand and gravel, every particle of which is 
 cutting into the rock surface beneath as the water pushes 
 
17 
 
 it over or dashes it against the ledge, any doubt whence 
 that canyon. And so as he studies the land surface and 
 finds these valleys cut in the solid rock, sometimes still 
 occupied by rivers and sometimes not, he sees but the 
 handiwork of some river. And so now, as we see in imagi- 
 nation these rock valleys so largely filled by sand and 
 gravel, which Mill and Tatnuck brooks mark out for us, 
 they tell us of ancient streams, before ever the glaciers 
 moved over this region, which rose in the highlands of 
 Paxton and Holden and joined their waters in the southern 
 part of Worcester. These streams with their tributaries, 
 even to the rain-drops, washed away the decayed rock, and 
 cut down their channels by means of the sands and gravels 
 that they carried, until they had carved out this broad 
 valley from the border of the Paxton-Leicester highlands 
 to the Millstone-Pakachoag ridge. But these valleys are 
 not now just as they were left by these ancient rivers. 
 During the Glacial Period the great ice currents that filled 
 and buried them under a few thousand feet of ice and 
 in whose foot were imbedded sand and rock-fragments, 
 rounded them out and deepened them. These valleys are 
 then somewhat deeper, broader, and more rounded ; but 
 the ridses were also cut down and rounded at the same 
 time, so that the most noticeable effect of the ice invasion 
 is the rounding and smoothing of the valley floors. 
 
 This broad valley in which Worcester lies, is simply the 
 result of the erosion and removal of material by rivers and 
 ice. This valley is but the upper part of the valley we have 
 already traced through Auburn, Oxford and Webster, which 
 is marked by the Norwich & Worcester E. R. and Lake 
 Chaubunagungamaug, and which separates the plateau of 
 Leicester, Charlton and Dudley from that of Millbury, 
 Sutton and Douglas. The meaning of this valley is that 
 in former times the land was continuous and of approxi- 
 mately one level from one plateau to the other ; over this 
 plateau flowed a river ; this river had its headwaters in the 
 
18 
 
 highlands of Holden, Paxton and Leicester, and flowed to 
 the south, and as it flowed, carved this valley in this plateau, 
 thus dividing the one into two plateaus. But what is true 
 of this valley is also true of the valley in which Lake 
 Quinsigamond lies. It, too, was carved out by an ancient 
 river. Let us then in our thoughts restore what has been 
 removed in the forming of these valleys, just as before we 
 cleared out the sands, gravel, clay and bowlders that the 
 ice left in them. But now we must fill in with rock mate- 
 rial like that beneath ; and as each rock stratum stands on 
 its edge, slanting to the west and extending 30° east of 
 north, we must think of these rock-strata extended upward 
 until their upper edges constitute a plain on a level with 
 the Paxton-Leicester highlands on one side and with the 
 top of Millstone-Pakachoag ridge on the other, as these 
 were before they were planed down by the ice of the gla- 
 ciers. In like manner let us think of the valley of Lake 
 Quinsigamond as being filled by the upward projection of 
 the strata of its floor, so that the land is continuous and of 
 one level across from Millstone-Pakachoag ridge to the 
 highlands of Shrewsbury. 
 
 This plain would have a gentle slope to the east and a 
 gentle slope from the highlands of Holden to the south. 
 This plain would be higher than the present plain joining 
 these areas by as much as these highlands and ridges were 
 lowered by the erosion of the ice. This is an unknown 
 quantity, but was probably not equal in all places. Proba- 
 bly such a narrow ridge as the Millstone-Pakachoag ridge 
 was lowered considerably more than were the broader areas 
 of Paxton and Leicester. This being so, the plain that we 
 are reconstructing would not have as great a slant to the east 
 as the plain joining these as they now are would have. 
 That ancient plain probably had a slope of less than fifty 
 feet to the mile, hut that it sloped to the east is indicated 
 by the fact that the highlands of Shrewsbury on beyond are 
 not so high as are those of Paxton. 
 
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19 
 
 Let us then take our position upon this broad plain, 
 standing 400 feet above the Common, and look around. 
 The highlands of Paxton and Leicester are but a little above 
 us, and the slope is so gentle that we should call the surface 
 a plain ; we should be a little higher than the highlands of 
 Shrewsbiiry, ,but again the difference is by such a gradual 
 slope that we may call it a plain ; and in like manner filling 
 in the old river valleys to the north and south, and to the 
 east and west, as we have those of Worcester, there would 
 be a broad plain with but slight inequalities. Looking at 
 the horizon around us while standing on that plain, it would 
 be almost the perfect circumference of a circle. To the 
 south this plain would include the plateaus already pointed 
 out of Millbury, Oxford, Sutton and Douglas, and of 
 Charlton and Dudley ; to the west it would include the 
 highlands of Leicester and Paxton, all save Asnebumskit, 
 which would rise fully 400 feet above our newly constructed 
 plain. As we follow this plain to the north, it includes all 
 the highlands of Holden, Rutland and Princeton, except 
 the rock-mass of Wachusett and Little Wachusett. This 
 rock-mass, rising at its highest point a thousand feet above 
 this plain, is certainly not a part of it. We thus see that 
 we should be standing in the midst of an ancient plain 
 sloping to the east and the south that was before these river 
 valleys were cut, and above and out of which rises now and 
 then an eminence like Asnebumskit, Wachusett, and, still 
 farther north, Watatic and Monadnock. This plain is the 
 ancient peneplain of Southern New England that Prof. Wm. 
 M. Davis so clearly and graphically points out to us.^ 
 These eminences rising above the plain he calls Monadnocks 
 from the typical one in southern New Hampshire. 
 
 We have spoken of this ancient peneplain as sloping 
 above Worcester towards the east and the south. This was 
 true in a general sense, but locally this plain sloped much 
 more decidedly to the south, for the old river valleys run 
 
 iThe Physical Geography of Southern New England. 
 
20 
 
 approximately north and south, showing the direction these 
 old rivers took as they began, if we may so speak, to flow 
 over or down this surface. But we cannot speak of the 
 rivers as beginning then, for the rivers were much older 
 and followed the slope of the land of an earlier time. This 
 maj' possibly indicate a slight change in the relative posi- 
 tion of the land immediately about us — a lowering of that 
 to the east or an elevation of that to the west. 
 
 Leaving now, for the time being, this old peneplain with 
 its Monadnocks rising above it, let us examine some facts 
 about us that may prove of interest, and that may have a 
 bearing upon this. Let us go to the quarries on Millstone 
 Hill. The rock is of a somewhat coarse, crystalline tex- 
 ture ; is composed first and largely of nearly white feld- 
 spar; second, of little rounded masses of smoky, sometimes 
 blue, quartz ; and, third, of small black foliated masses of 
 biotite mica. If we search carefully through the quarries 
 we may also find a small amount of beryl, some molybde- 
 nite, and fluorite especially on the surfaces of fissures. 
 These last minerals we immediately recognize as not essen- 
 tial constituents of the rock. We also notice that the rock 
 has no layer or foliated structure. It is perfectly massive 
 and homogeneous. If we trace this rock in any direction 
 we find that it is local, does not generally extend even to 
 the bottom of the hill ; but other rocks of grajs drab or 
 black color appear in the outcropping ledges. These rocks 
 around the base and reaching up on the sides of Millstone 
 Hill we recognize as very difi"erent from the rock at the top. 
 They have a layer structure, their substance is arranged in 
 layers or strata, and the strata lean towards the hill on the 
 various sides except the southern. Also, if we carefully 
 examine the quarries at the top, we see a few sheets or thin 
 masses, laid bare by the removal of the rock by the quar- 
 ryman, closely resembling the dark drab or black rock 
 around the base, but appearing as if they had been heated. 
 These sheets are or were included in the massive rock first 
 
21 
 
 described. Taking all these facts into consideration — the 
 dislocation of the neighboring rock, the inclusion of frag- 
 ments of the neighboring rock, the massive crystalline 
 structure, and the composition — we conclude that the rock 
 of the quarries is a granite. It is a foreigner, as it were, 
 here, and came into its place after the neighboring rocks 
 were already in place. It welled up from beneath as 
 molten rock through some opening or fissure, and the dis- 
 location of the neighboring rock accompanied the welling 
 up of molten rock. Hence it is that the neighboring strata 
 lean against the granite mass. This rock quarried on Mill- 
 stone Hill is then a granite. But granite has a story to tell 
 us. By its coarse crystalline texture, by its entire or com- 
 plete crystallization, by the liquefied gases held in cavities 
 within it, the granite tells us that it did not solidify and 
 crystallize at the surface of the earth where it now is, but 
 at a great depth beneath the surface. Rocks solidifying at 
 the surface take on the form of the various lavas ; are likely 
 to be spongy or porous, glassy, and only partially crystal- 
 lized. These characteristics the granite does not possess, 
 but others pointing to a slow cooling in some buried depth. 
 There is also the rock quarried at the Ballard quarry near 
 Quinsigamond. Examining this, we find nothing resem- 
 bling the rock found at Millstone Hill quarry. Here all of 
 the rock substance is arranged in layers ; and we may trace 
 these from one end of the quarry to the other, forming wavy 
 bands of various tints. Some are almost white and of 
 coarse crystalline texture ; some are light gray and of fine 
 crystalline texture ; some are greenish gray and also fine ; 
 some are of a darker gray and present a streaked appear- 
 ance, and have a medium coarse crystalline texture; some 
 are hard and firm ; some soft and easily crumbled. But in 
 all of this variation there is one characteristic in common, — 
 all are crystalline. These bands have a direction of about 
 30° east of north ; and where they rise into the walls of the 
 quarry, are seen to be but the edges of strata tilted from 
 
22 
 
 a horizontal position to an angle of about 75° slanting 
 towards the west. These strata were not always as they 
 now are. They tell us of a time when they were not crys- 
 tallized, of a time when they were deposited in the waters 
 of an ancient sea as impure layers of sand, impure layers of 
 clay, or possibly layers of pebbles along some beach ; 
 some of these layers were colored red or yellow by iron 
 rust, or possibly black, from the particles of magnetite dis- 
 tributed through them ; others were white as the sand of 
 the beach. But between these two stages of these rock 
 strata, the present where everything is crystalline and the 
 former where everything was fragmental, there has been a 
 wonderful change. Subjected to the action of hot waters 
 under pressure, and waters saturated with mineral sub- 
 stance because they were hot and under pressure, these 
 fragmental strata have been solidified and recrystallized into 
 their present condition. But these are changes that do not 
 take place at the surface of the earth, but at considerable 
 depths within the earth. We might also consider the other 
 rocks found about us from Millstone-Pakachoag ridge to 
 and including the highlands of Leicester and Paxton ; all 
 would tell the same story of a transformation that could not 
 have taken place at the surface of the earth. 
 
 What does all this mean ? Simply that these rocks now 
 at the surface of the earth were once buried beneath some 
 thousands of feet of rock. It means, were all the rock 
 material here that once was here, the land here would be 
 not less than 5000 feet above the sea-level instead of 500. 
 And this is true not only of this immediate region but also 
 of Southern New England in general. Above this peneplain 
 that we have asked you to observe as you looked to the 
 north, south, east and west, the rocks were extended fully 
 a mile. But where is all of this rock material ? Whither 
 has all this rock material gone ? It has gone just as the 
 sand and clay are swept along by the brooklet. During 
 the long ages of geological time after this land was raised 
 
23 
 
 above the sea, the agents of the atmosphere, the rivers and 
 the rivulets, the brooks and the brooklets, were softening 
 and loosening and removing particle after particle, until 
 this whole mass was carried off and cast into the sea to form 
 new lands beneath the sea. But is it possible that all of 
 this great rock mass has been removed and not a vestige of 
 it anywhere remains ? Look yonder at Asnebumskit, Wa- 
 chusett, Watatic, Monadnock. They are what remain of 
 this great thickness of rock to tell us the story. The rocks 
 around them have been removed while they have escaped 
 this great erosion. But why did these points escape? 
 Why was Wachusett left while the broad surrounding coun- 
 try was reduced fully a thousand feet beneath it? The first 
 thought that comes is that it must be composed of so much 
 harder and more resisting material that the elements wer^ 
 not able to reduce it as they reduced the surrounding coun- 
 try. Let us examine the rocks of Wachusett with this in 
 view. It is composed of granite with a small amount of 
 mica schist appearing at various altitudes even to the top. 
 The granite is no more resisting than is that of broad areas 
 around that have been reduced to the general level of the 
 peneplain around its base. The mica schist is soft and 
 easily worn away. Then, surely, to say that it stands 
 there because of its greater resisting power is but a 
 poor answer to give. And if we look to Asnebumskit, 
 such an answer is less valid. It is composed of a soft mica 
 schist, much softer and less enduring than much of the rock 
 in the valleys beneath. There must be some other princi- 
 ple that explains these remnants of this old land mass. 
 
 Let us picture in mind a land area for the first time 
 exposed to the action of running water, a lawn, if you will, 
 that the gardener has prepared for the seed. As the rain 
 falls in the spring shower, the drops, guided by the liltle 
 inequalities, gather into rills, the rills into brooklets, and 
 the brooks cut out their valleys in the soft ground. There 
 are two brooks approximately parallel ; between them is a 
 
24 
 
 ridge, and the crest of the ridge is the divide between these 
 streams. If we examine the water as it begins to move 
 from this divide, the streams are the minutest possible ; 
 they can do but the feeblest work; but when the many 
 drops have swollen into the rushing brook beneath, even 
 the large pebbles are pushed along. That ridge stands be- 
 tween the two brooks because of the inequality in the 
 erosion. The crest of the ridge is a line of less-erosion, 
 therefore that line is the highest line between the brooks. 
 But again let us think of two tributaries flowing side by 
 side down the right hand slope of this ridge into the right 
 hand brook. Each of these is cutting its valley, and there 
 is a divide between these. The crest of this ridge, sloping 
 though it may down towards the main stream, is again a 
 line of less-erosion with reference to the channels of these 
 tributaries. The left hand stream also has two tributaries 
 flowing down the left hand slope of the main ridge, and 
 these tributaries are approximately opposite the right hand 
 tributaries. Between these is also a line of less-erosion. 
 These two lines of the second order of less-erosion meet the 
 line of less-erosion of the main ridge at approximately the 
 same point. Where these lines of less-erosion cross is a 
 point of less-erosion. There will be many of these points 
 of less-erosion along the ridge ; and as we follow the ridge 
 in the direction of upstream, these points will be points of 
 less and less erosion until up at the very sources will be the 
 superlative, the point of least erosion in the degradation of 
 that country up where the great divides between the main 
 streams of the country cross. In other words, Asnebum- 
 skit, Wachusett, Watatic, Monadnock, are the points of 
 least-erosion in the degradation of Southern New England 
 to this broad peneplain. 
 
 As we have in a former part attempted to picture the 
 past condition about us by filling in the valley in which 
 Worcester lies, so now let us bring back all of this rock 
 material that has been removed so that these rocks now at 
 
25 
 
 the surface are a mile or more beneath. What sort of a 
 country shall we picture in our minds after this has been 
 done? Professor William M. Davis has answered this 
 question for us. ^ " Was the region, before the great denu- 
 dation was accomplished, a rocky, even-topped plateau, or 
 a rugged mountain range ? Look again at the attitude of 
 New England rocks, remembering that typical plateaus like 
 those of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, have horizontal 
 structure, while typical mountain ranges like the Alps and 
 Himalayas are regions of deformed structure. Ancient 
 New England certainly belonged to the latter class. The 
 disorderly and steeply inclined rock masses may be seen 
 at a hundred points on hilltops and valley sides, in stream 
 beds, railroad cuts, and quarries. The valleys of the 
 Housatonic, Farmington, Westfield, and Deerfield rivers 
 all expose deep sections in the western upland. Extensive 
 quarries, such as those of Monson in the upland east of 
 Springfield, are well worth visiting for the plain views that 
 they afford of rock structure and attitude. The headlands 
 of the coast frequently expose clean-swept ledges, where 
 the deformed rocks can be admirably studied. They all 
 teach the lesson of severe disturbance, as different as pos- 
 sible from the placidity that prevails among the ancient 
 sedimentary strata of the Ohio Valley, where layer lies on 
 layer in almost undisturbed horizontal position. 
 
 "The New England rocks are not only deformed in 
 mass : they exhibit also at many places the minute internal 
 deformities so characteristic of regions that have been 
 crushed under a great overlying load, and so prevalent in 
 regions that are mountainous today. On Hoosac Moun- 
 tain there is an old pudding-stone or conglomerate whose 
 once round pebbles are now drawn out into strips, the rock 
 assuming the character of a gneiss. Among the Berkshire 
 Hills ancient slates are gnarled and crinkled into schists. 
 
 iThe Physical Geography of Southern New England, pp. 278, 279. 
 
26 
 
 At many points cleavage is more or less perfectly developed 
 in the finer grained rocks. 
 
 " The crushing forces that caused ^the greater and smaller 
 deformities cannot have been exerted after the peneplain 
 was produced, for in that event they would have deformed 
 the upland surface. The deformation of New England 
 mtist have taken place before the great denudation. During 
 the period of most energetic deformation, New England 
 must have had as thoroughly a mountainous form as it still 
 has a mountainous structure. Indeed, the most probable 
 conclusion that can be reached regarding the ancient topog- 
 raphy of the region, raises its peaks to truly Alpine heights, 
 clothes their upper slopes with snow-fields, and fills their 
 valleys with glaciers ; and all these . features should be 
 restored in the pictures that the attentive observer mentally 
 sketches in his effort to represent the ancestry of the upland. 
 Very slowly were the ancient mountains raised ; much more 
 slowly were they worn down, until now only their base 
 remains. New England is a worn-out mountain range." 
 
 The full meaning, then, of what the granite of Millstone 
 Hill and the upturned layers of gneiss at the Quinsigamond 
 quarries and the crystalline schists east and west of Worces- 
 ter tell us is that once in distant ages of geologic time 
 they were the foundations of lofty mountains. 
 
 As we first pictured the surface of Worcester as it is, 
 then as it was before it was modified by the glaciers, then 
 as a part of the broad peneplain of Southern New England, 
 so now we must bring back and build up these majestic 
 mountains, the lost glory of New England. Compared with 
 these Wachusett, the pride of Worcester County, is the 
 merest pigmy. It too was in the foundation of these 
 ancient mountains, for the rocks at its summit tell but the 
 same story of having been buried far within the earth. 
 
 Considerable has already been said in regard to the 
 water-courses of Worcester, but let us consider in detail 
 each, commencing with the most easterly. Lake Quinsiga- 
 
27 
 
 mond. This is a type of the beautiful sheets of water that 
 nestle here and there among the hills of New England 
 relieving the monotony, and adding beauty and refreshment 
 to the landscape. These ponds or lakes occupy natural 
 basins, and are very important in the natural economy. 
 During the dry months of the year, the water soaks into 
 the surrounding earth, refreshing and enlivening the vege- 
 tation ; from them also moisture passes into the air, cooling 
 the atmosphere and relieving its dryness ; and as the water 
 in these basins is lowered during the dry months, they 
 catch and hold back the floods of fall and spring so that the 
 lowlands of the river valleys are much less devastated and 
 overflowed. They are, in fact, but the local broadening 
 and enlarging of the channels of the various brooks and 
 rivers in whose courses they occur. As the stream seeks 
 the sea over an irregular surface, it meets with obstruc- 
 tions around which it cannot flow because of the surround- 
 ing elevations ; or the river flows into a basin, and in this 
 basin the water accumulates till it reaches the lowest point 
 in the rim, and then at this point the waters flow out. 
 Here is a lake, But no sooner does the water begin to 
 flow over the rim, be the material beneath of solid rock or 
 of loose material like bowlder clay, than does the swift 
 current begin to pick up particles of the rock or clay, and 
 sweep these along, thus wearing away and cutting down, 
 lower and lower, year by year, the outlet. Thus the lake 
 is gradually drained. 
 
 But there is another side to this story. At the head of 
 the lake and along its shores, wherever there are rivulets, 
 brooks, or even brooklets living but during the continuance 
 of the rain-storms or showers, they are bringing in their 
 loads of sand and clay, and depositing them in the quiet 
 waters of the lake, the coarser at the immediate mouth of 
 the stream and the finer out in the deeper waters over the 
 whole lake-bed. Thus it is that, however muddy and dirty 
 the water that enters these lakes, that leaving will be clear 
 
28 
 
 and free from sediment. And so as the years go by the 
 brooks and rivers build out their deltas, the lake-bed is 
 raised little by little, the lake is contracted and made 
 shallow, vegetation springs up and adds its substance to 
 the filling material, and the basin is filled ; so that even if 
 the outlet is not cut down so as to drain the lake, still the 
 lake is doomed to obliteration, first becoming a marsh and 
 then a meadow with the stream winding through it in a 
 serpentine channel. Lake, marsh, meadow are the stages 
 in the history of every one of these sheets of water. 
 When now the meadow is overflowed by the floods of 
 spring, it simply tells us of what was once there. And 
 during these flood periods the work of former times is sim- 
 ply continued, for these waters are laden with mud and 
 silt which settle and build up the meadow a trifle each year. 
 Thus the work goes on until the meadow is beyond the 
 reach of the highest flood, or is drained dry by the cutting 
 down of the outlet. Long hence may the time be when 
 the rivers, following immutable law, shall have removed 
 these many jewels of New England scenery ! The very 
 fact that so many of these natural ponds and lakes remain, 
 tells us of the shortness of the time in which these streams 
 have been cutting away obstructions and filling basins 
 within their courses ; tells us that these streams have been 
 following these courses but a short time, are in fact in their 
 youth. Thus are we able to speak of the age of brooks 
 and rivers ; by the work accomplished we may know the 
 youth, the middle-age, and old age of streams. 
 
 We pointed out in the case of Mill Brook, how it is 
 flowing over gravels and sands deposited in an old river 
 valley. So quite generally the streams about us are fol- 
 lowing old river valleys that had been cut in the old 
 peneplain of southern New England before the glacial 
 period ; but during the glacial period enormous quantities 
 of sand and gravel together with unstratified drift were 
 deposited in these, partially filling some, completely oblit- 
 
29 
 
 crating others. Thus it is that waters of subsequent 
 time have sometimes followed the old valleys irregularly 
 filled, or have sought out entirely new courses. In either 
 case basins and obstructions were encountered in which, 
 and behind which, the waters accumulated, forming the 
 lakes. Thus we see that the glacial period made out of 
 this region a new land surface. It was a re-creation in 
 New England landscape. This landscape about us has the 
 vigor, the freshness, and the beauty of youth. 
 
 Eeturning now to Lake Quinsigamond, these laws are 
 being executed in this lake as in others. The time will 
 come, just 'as surely as the rain falls and the brooks flow, 
 when this beautiful sheet of water, on whose shores the 
 Indian built his wigwam, and by which the early settlers 
 were attracted to fix the site of our prosperous and beauti- 
 ful city, will disappear from the face of the earth, and in 
 its place will be a long, narrow meadow, through which 
 will lazily flow, winding along in its serpentine course, 
 an insignificant river. 
 
 Lake Quinsigamond is about five and one-half miles long, 
 and, in the upper part, one-eighth to one-quarter of 
 a mile wide, and in the lower part about one mile wide. 
 Through a large part of its course it might be taken for a 
 wide, slowly moving river. It is 360 feet above sea-level 
 and 120 feet below the Common. It fills a small part of a 
 great rock valley lying between Millstone Hill ridge and 
 the high rock ridge extending through the southwestern, 
 western, and northwestern parts of Shrewsbury. This 
 valley is in width, measuring from crest to crest of these 
 two ridges, two miles and more in places, and in depth, 
 measurins: to the surface of the lake, 400 feet. In fact the 
 altitude from the lake to the highest point on Millstone 
 Hill is greater than the elevation of the lake above sea-level. 
 But the lake does not rest directly on the floor of the rock 
 valley, but on sands and gravels twenty-five, or perhaps 
 fifty, feet thick. This great rock valley is then probably 
 
30 
 
 500 feet deep. This valley, like those already described 
 west of Millstone Hill ridge, is an old river valley, which 
 was rounded out and deepened by the ice of the glacial 
 period. The floor of this valley is covered by a layer or 
 coating of varying thickness of sands and gravels. These 
 also belong to the glacial period, and were left there during 
 the latter part of that period. These sands and gravels are 
 seen on either side of the lake, and extend some distance 
 from it. In places there are great cavities sunk in these 
 sands and gravels, and some of these hold little lakes, 
 which rise and fall with the water in Lake Quinsiga- 
 mond. There are really what we may call' two lakes 
 in this valley. The one that we see and call Lake Quinsig- 
 amond is by far the smaller. Let us think of this body of 
 water, and then think of the sands and gravels beneath 
 and on either side as perfectly dry ; how long would Lake 
 Quinsigamond remain in view ? Evidently in a very short 
 time its waters would disappear in these sands. Then 
 these sands must be permeated or soaked with water, water 
 filling the spaces among the grains. In other words there 
 is another Lake Quinsigamond broader and deeper than 
 the one we know, as broad and deep as are the sands and 
 gravels of this valley. The little lakes in the cavities 
 already described simply reveal to us the level of this lake ; 
 the cavities are deep enough to reach down below the level 
 of this invisible lake, and hence the waters appear in them ; 
 and the rising and falling of these little lakes are but the 
 rising and falling of the great invisible lake within the 
 sands and gravels. 
 
 On the shores of a similar lake in Webster, Lake Chau- 
 bunagungamaug, there have been sunk wells in the sands 
 and gravels, from which water is pumped with which to 
 supply the town. These wells have been sunk into the 
 invisible lake. The pumps are simply drawing water from 
 the greater lake, whose waters permeate the sand and gravel 
 occupying that rock valley. And so by boring into the 
 sands and gravels bordering Lake Quinsigamond, at 
 
2 
 
31 
 
 approximately the level of the water in the visible lake, 
 the waters of the invisible lake would be reached. We 
 may hereafter, as we look at Lake Quinsigamond, remem- 
 ber that deeper and broader lake of which it is only the 
 visible part. 
 
 We have spoken of this great rock valley in which Lake 
 Quinsigamond is, as the valley of an ancient river. If it is 
 such, we may rightly ask why the waters accumulate to 
 such an extent here. Simply because at North Grafton, 
 at the foot of the lake, a large mass of firm, hard, compact 
 glacial material was left, as the glacier retreated, filling the 
 valley so that the valley is almost obliterated. This ma- 
 terial is so compact that the waters cannot leach through it 
 to any extent, and so the waters accumulate back of it till 
 they rise high enough to overflow this barrier as they do 
 in Quinsigamond river.' But while we can easily see where 
 the barrier is that holds back the waters and of what it is 
 composed, there is something else not so easily explained. 
 We have spoken of this old rock-valley as being partially 
 filled with sand and gravel. The surface of the gravels on 
 one side of the lake is on a level, approximately, with the 
 surface of those on the opposite side, while in the midst is 
 the depression of the lake. The question which we desire 
 to answer is this : — Why are not the gravels that appear 
 on either side of the lake continuous across the valley, 
 thus completely filling the depression now occupied by 
 Lake Quinsigamond ? Why was not the central part of the 
 valley filled up to the level of the gravel on either side ? 
 
 Standing at the middle of the causeway that crosses the 
 lake and looking north or south, we see that the shores are 
 everywhere composed of gravel ; the surface of these 
 gravels is not a regular plain, but rises in knolls or 
 mounds resembling inverted cups, and descends in saucer- 
 like depressions among these knolls. Also we see distrib- 
 uted here and there in the midst of the lake itself, islands 
 rising a few feet above the surface of the lake, and com- 
 posed of gravels like those in the shores. Whatever 
 
32 
 
 explanation makes clear the origin of the gravels in one 
 must make clear that of the other. How, then, may we 
 think of this depression within the gravel that is now occu- 
 pied by Lake Quihsigamond as having been formed? Let 
 us think of the great valley between the Millstone I'idge and 
 the Shrewsbury highlands as being filled with the ice of 
 the glacial period from rock surface on the east to the rock 
 surface on the west and from the rock-floor to the top of 
 the enclosing ridges and beyond. This valley was a river 
 valley before that and not of uniform depth. Where the 
 ancient river was just before the glacial period must have 
 been the deepest part of this valley. In other words, the 
 river followed a channel in this valley below the floor of 
 the valley on either side. The depth of this channel 
 below the valley-floor would depend on the velocity of the 
 river current. If the land of this vicinity, in common with 
 all New England, was greatly elevated before the coming of 
 the glacial period, as is quite well established, then this 
 river was moving with a rapid current, and may have, 
 probably had, lowered its channel considerably below the 
 general floor* of the valley. This channel would under 
 these conditions have steep sides and would be a canyon 
 within this valley. Then the ice filling this valley must 
 have been of varying thickness, being thicker where the 
 valley was deeper. Let us now think of the last stages of 
 the glacial period, when the ice was melting away and dis- 
 appearing from the land about us. As the ice melted there 
 were abundant streams, some upon the ice, some following 
 tunnels within the ice ; and those upon the ice must have 
 passed down into the ice whenever a fissure crossed the 
 course of the stream. But as the ice became thinner and 
 thinner and its motion became less and less in the closino- 
 stages, the streams on the surface must have become more 
 and more persistent, disappearing less and less frequently. 
 These streams were abundantly supplied with sands and 
 gravels which had been held within the ice. The streams 
 were not able to remove these entirely, and so distributed 
 
33 
 
 these sands and gravels over the surface of the ice, burying 
 the ice under a thick covering of sand and gravel. This 
 coating came to be many feet in thickness as layer after 
 layer was spread over the surface. Also this coating was 
 continuous across the area over which it was spread, and 
 its surface constituted a plain without noticeable depres- 
 sions or elevations like those in these sands and gravels at 
 the present time. But the ice buried beneath these gravels 
 and sands was of varying thickness, being thickest above 
 the river channel in the old valley ; so that as this ice 
 melted, the gravels and sands sank until at last they rested 
 on the rock-floor beneath. Where the old river channel 
 was, there the sands sank lowest, and thus left a long, 
 narrow channel-like depression, bordered on either side by 
 sands and gravels, with a steep slope from their surface 
 down into the depression. But even the ice within the 
 sands and gravels on either side of this great depression 
 was not of uniform thickness, and so as this ice melted 
 these sands and gravels were left with an irregular surface 
 broken by hillocks and saucer-like depressions. The 
 islands distributed here and there through the lake may 
 have been caused by sand and gravel accumulating in 
 small local depressions in the ice, thus giving a greater 
 thickness of gravel and a smaller thickness of ice beneath, 
 so that as the ice melted these filled depressions were low- 
 ered less than the surrounding gravels, and so rise above 
 them, and appear even above the waters of the present 
 lake. Thus may we interpret the facts presented to our 
 view as we look to the north and south over that beautiful 
 river-like lake. Lake Quinsigamond. 
 
 But let our thoughts now return to the rock valley in 
 which this lake lies. Let us remove in mind the sands, 
 gravels, and lake, that we may think of the region as it 
 was before it was modified by the glacial agents. It was a 
 broad, deep valley, two miles or so in width, and 500 feet 
 deep, and with sides less rounded than now. In this valley 
 flowed a river, and a much more powerful river than those 
 3 
 
34 
 
 already spoken of west of Millstone Hill ridge. This river 
 flowed to the south, and followed, approximately, the 
 course of the Blackstone — in fact was the ancient Black- 
 stone. To the north we are not as yet sufficiently well 
 acquainted with the country to trace this valley, but it will 
 not be surprising if this valley is traced and found to join 
 the valley of the ancient Nashua Eiver. Whether this be 
 so or not, it was a powerful river and of considerable 
 volume, for it cut its channel a hundred feet or more below 
 that of the ancient Mill Brook, and that too in harder and 
 more resisting rock. Let us fix this fact in our minds, for 
 from this has resulted a very important fact in regard to 
 the drainage of Worcester. 
 
 In describing the Milistone-Pakachoag ridge it was in- 
 tended to make specially prominent the breaks or cuts in 
 it, especially that through which flows the Blackstone. If 
 we examine the region including New Worcester, South 
 Worcester, Jamesvilie and Stoneville, we find first 
 streams flowing from the north, as Kettle, Tatnuck, and 
 Mill brooks; then those flowing from the south, as that 
 from Ramshorn Pond and others from the foot of Pros- 
 pect Hill in southern Auburn. These two sets of streams 
 finally join and constitute the head-waters of the Black- 
 stone. Another fact that must arouse interest, if we 
 but stop to think, is the winding course of Kettle Brook as 
 it follows its circuitous route from Jamesvilie to Stone- 
 ville, thence to Curtis Pond, and then to South Worcester, 
 finally reaching the gateway of the Blackstone. These 
 facts demand our attention and some explanation, especially 
 when we compare this drainage arrangement with the 
 French River just west and the Blackstone just east. The 
 French River flows from the north to the south ; the real 
 Blackstone, or original Blackstone, including Lake Quin- 
 sigamond valley, is from the north to the south ; but the 
 drainage from Millbury and Auburn into Kettle Brook, 
 approximately parallel to these, is from the south to the 
 north. The meaning of this peculiar arrangement of these 
 
35 
 
 streams entering Kettle Brook is this : Long before the 
 glacial period there was an ancient river, which we have 
 called the Auburn River, which received the waters of the 
 ancient Kettle, Mill and Tatnuck brooks. The two hitter 
 brooks flowed together at a point a little south of New 
 Worcester, while Kettle Brook joined them at a point a little 
 farther south, possibly at Stoneville. This river did not 
 flow through Quinsigamond Village and thence to Millbury, 
 for there was not then any deep cut through the Millstone- 
 Pakachoag ridge as there now is ; but this ancient river 
 flowed down through Auburn, east of Prospect Hill, 
 through Oxford Plains, thence into Webster, cutting out 
 the valley now partly filled by Lake Chaubunagungamaug. 
 This is the valley that was pointed out in the early part of 
 this paper as separating the highlands of Millbury, Oxford, 
 Sutton and Douglas on the east, from those of Leicester, 
 Charlton and Dudley on the west. In fact, this valley, the 
 highland borders of which we have already traced, was cut 
 out by this ancient river in the old peneplain of southern 
 New England. But the continuation of this valley in 
 Connecticut we are not yet able to trace from lack of 
 knowledge of the country. The head-waters of this ancient 
 river were separated from the waters of the ancient Lake 
 Quinsigamond Eiver by the Millstone-Pakachoag ridge, 
 which was then continuous without the cuts through which 
 now pass the Boston and Albany Raih'oad and the Black- 
 stone River. Of these two ancient streams the Lake 
 Quinsigamond River was by far the more powerful, and 
 wore away and lowered its channel much more rapidly than 
 did the head- waters of the ancient Auburn River. The 
 Lake Quinsigamond River had tributaries, both large and 
 small, and as the main river cut down its channel, so also 
 did they cut down theirs. One of these tributaries flowed 
 from the eastern side of Pakachoag Hill through what is 
 now Millbury, and joined the main stream at approxi- 
 mately Farnumsville. This stream was in itself quite a 
 powerful river, and it cut its channel lower and lower into 
 
36 
 
 the highlands of which Pakachoag and Vernon Street Hills 
 are now the western border. As it did so, its head-waters, 
 even to the tiniest brook, were cutting into these high- 
 lands. There appeared first the merest depression between 
 these two hills. This was made deeper and deeper, and 
 the head-waters of this tributary approached nearer and 
 nearer to the ancient Mill Brook on the other side. At 
 last, at a time \Nrhen the ancient Mill Brook was swollen by 
 floods, its waters began to flow into this tributary, and 
 ceased to be apart of the Auburn River. Thus it was that 
 the deep cut' between Vernon Street and Pakachoag Hills 
 was made.,* Thus it was that Mill Brook began to flow 
 down through Millbury, while Tatnuck and Kettle brooks 
 continued to flow down through Auburn.^ But the same ac- 
 tion going on would have in time diverted first Tatnuck, and 
 then Kettle Brook in the same way. But the turning of 
 these', or at least the last, into the Blackstone, together 
 with the waters from Ramshorn Pond in Millbury and the 
 waters from the northern slope of Prospect Hill in Auburn 
 and Oxford, was brought about in another way. There 
 came the time when the land was covered by the great ice 
 sheet. Because of this, after the departure of the ice, the 
 valleys were to a greater or less extent filled with sands 
 and gravels and unstratified glacial material. Some valleys 
 sufiiered in this respect more than others. While some 
 rivers, after the departure of the ice, continued to flow over 
 the sands and gravels in some of these valleys, in the case 
 of others the rivers ceased entirely to flow as they had 
 formerly. This was true of the Auburn River. The sands 
 and gravels and other glacial material were deposited so 
 thickly in this valley between North Oxford and Auburn 
 as to form a low water-shed, and thus the waters in the 
 valley north of this were forced to flow to the north, and, 
 joining with the waters of Kettle Brook, finally found an 
 
 1 It is hoped that the good people of Millbury will not now apply for an 
 injunction to force tUe City of Worcester to change the course of Mill Brook 
 into its ancient channel. 
 
1-1 
 
37 
 
 outlet into the Blackstone. As we thus read back step by 
 step, we find one fact after another explained, and we now 
 understand the circuitous path that Kettle Brook follows in 
 getting out of this enclosed basin on its journey to the sea. 
 Going to the west the next considerable stream is the 
 brook flowing through Peat Meadow, Beaver Brook. This 
 rises among the drumlins of the southern part of Holden, 
 and flows approximately south, with drumlins on either 
 side of it through nearly the whole of its course, till it adds 
 its waters to those of Tatnuck Brook. There is no indica- 
 tion that this brook follows an old river or brook valley, 
 but its course has been entirely determined by the deposi- 
 tion of the glacial drift, which is for the most part in the 
 form of drumlins. This brook had its beginning with the 
 withdrawal or retreat of the ice of the glacial period from 
 this region. It was originally a brook or river carrying off 
 the water from the melting ice that enveloped these drum- 
 lins, and since then the waters that have fallen upon the 
 sides of these have been sufl5cient to keep water flowing in 
 this channel even during the dry months of the year. But 
 the valley formed by these many drumlins on either side 
 was quite irregular ; there were depressions in it and ob- 
 structions across it. The depressions the waters filled, and 
 the obstructions the waters overflowed, in either case pro- 
 ducing an accumulation of waters, thus forming ponds. 
 Into these ponds the rills and brooks from the neighboring 
 hillsides, swollen by heavy rains and spring floods, flowed, 
 bearing their loads of clay and sand. Vegetation sprang 
 up and grew luxuriantly in the moist rich soil spread over 
 the bottom of these ponds, and thus the shallow basins were 
 rapidly filled. And so these basins were transformed into 
 marshes and meadows, which we find through a large part of 
 the course of this stream. Peat Meadow is such a marsh, 
 which was once a shallow pond. This brook has also re- 
 moved large quantities of sand and gravel, and has made a 
 deep cut between Pleasant and Chandler Streets. Along 
 the western side of this cut there remains a beautiful ter- 
 
38 
 
 race showing the former height of the land across this 
 valley. Had not the brook, as it was cutting away here, 
 been interfered with, it would in time have cut into Peat 
 Meadow and drained it, leaving it high and dry. Thus there 
 are within Worcester illustrations of a stream in its youth 
 where the lakes and natural ponds have not yet been filled 
 up because of their depth and size, and of a stream in its 
 middle life where these have been filled and almost drained. 
 
 In the extreme western part of Worcester is the succes- 
 sion of artificial ponds from Tatnuck, or better, from the 
 Holden Eeservoir, to New Worcester and the south. On 
 the early maps of Worcester this is but a simple stream 
 flowing through this valley, but at later times dams were 
 built across the valley at various places to hold the water 
 back to be used for power, or to be stored up for use 
 during the dryer months of the year. The present stream 
 had its beginning when the glacier withdrew from this 
 region, carrying off the abundance of water from the melt- 
 ing ice. But before ever glacier covered this land surface, 
 enveloping both hills and valleys, there was a river flowing 
 down through this valley, as we have already pointed out. 
 If you desire to see a perfect illustration of an ancient 
 river valley, go to the summit of Pakachoag Hill ; looking 
 to the northwest you will see the horizon resting upon 
 Asnebumskit, then sinking abruptly to the level of Holden 
 Reservoir, then rising by an almost vertical line to the sum- 
 mit of Stone House Hill. This notch in the horizon is not 
 unlike the notches produced by the canyons of the West, 
 though on a smaller scale ; the wall on the one side rising 
 over 300 feet, and on the other side 600 feet above the res- 
 ervoir. And then, as you walk or ride along the shores of 
 that reservoir, recall what that deep gorge tells of the past. 
 It is the valley of an ancient river. 
 
 But to return to the present — this stream, converted into 
 a succession of artificial ponds, illustrates the manner in 
 which man has interfered with natural processes. Left to 
 itself, this stream would go on clearing the sands and 
 
39 
 
 gravels out of this old river valley, especially when it is 
 transformed into a rushing torrent by the melting snows 
 and heavy rains ; but by these artificial basins its waters are 
 stored up in times of flood ; it ceases, to be a torrent, and 
 becomes a more gentle and uniform stream throughout the 
 year. But its ability to do geological work is thus greatly 
 diminished. For oftentimes in the flood period, because of 
 the greater volume of water and the increased velocity of 
 its current, the stream does more work than during the 
 remainder of the year. Moreover, through these ponds 
 the current of the stream is very slow, and its ability to 
 carry material and cut down is reduced to zero, so that the 
 erosion of the stream is limited to the parts of the channel 
 between these ponds. But even here the stream is allowed 
 to expend but a small part of its energy without interfer- 
 ence. It is caused to fall over a precipice on hard and 
 resisting rock placed there to receive the blow, or it must 
 waste its energy, geologically, tumbling down a series of 
 steps also of enduring rock. These rocks are renewed by 
 man as fast as they are worn away. But this only applies 
 to the part of the stream that is allowed to go over the dam. 
 By far the larger part is forced to move wheel after wheel, 
 each of which moves scores of feet of shafting, and thence 
 the motion goes into machines of every description, the 
 cunning devices of men to take from that stream its stored 
 up energy and make it do work other than that whereunto 
 nature set it. For a river is able to do only a certain quan- 
 tity of work. It is a falling body, and possesses a fixed 
 amount of energy because of the position of its waters 
 above the sea. In flowing along in its natural state the 
 river is pushing and rolling along pebbles, is taking up and 
 carrying along bodily grains of sand and particles of clay ; 
 and so closely does the river attend to its task that when it 
 reaches sea-level it has barely energy enough left to crawl 
 through its winding course at base-level and lose itself in 
 mother ocean. Then so much of this energy as is used up 
 in turning myriads of wheels cannot be used in doing its 
 
40 
 
 geological work, the clearing out of this old river valley. 
 
 But man does not have it all his own way in this matter. 
 He who seeks to thwart the course of nature must make no 
 mistakes in his calculations. For if he fiiils to calculate 
 aright the power of that stream when the water is high, his 
 work is swept away, and the devastation below, the geolog- 
 ical work, is all the greater; 'or if he leaves a crack or 
 crevice in the obstruction, the waters will find it and 
 commence their work of enlarging and weakening, which 
 may result in the downfall of the whole obstruction. But 
 suppose man makes no mistakes, still that river is more 
 than his equal. The river, aided by all the brooks flowing 
 into that pond, and by vegetation along its shores and in the 
 shallow waters, will fill that basin. What then will hold 
 back the floods of spring? Of what use will the dam be 
 when the mill-pond is a marsh ? Study the mill-ponds seen 
 as you follow the French and the Blackstone Rivers on your 
 way to Norwich or Providence, and you will sec that this 
 is what is taking place. So in the end the river triumphs, 
 for when the mill-pond is a marsh no one will repair the 
 dam ; at an unlucky time it will be swept away, and the 
 river will go on doing its work, a little behind where it 
 would have been in the accomplishment of its task. 
 
 We have thus considered the land surface of W^orcester 
 as it is now, as it was before the glacial period, and as it 
 was when the mountains of central Massachusetts together 
 with those of southern New England, had been worn down 
 almost to sea-level, excepting now and then a single peak. 
 We have studied the water-courses, noting the facts which 
 they demonstrate and the thoughts which they bring to 
 mind. But the subject is not exhausted ; the writing of 
 this has brought out many points that need further study, 
 and are reserved for the future. But if this paper shall 
 give a meaning to the landscape about us, and shall lead us 
 to think, as we walk or ride out among these hills and over 
 these brooks and around these ponds, then it has not been 
 written in vain.