DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director

PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 B

THE NEWINGTON MORAINE

MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS

BY

FRANK J. KATZ AND ARTHUR KEITH

Published March 15, 1917

Shorter contributions to general geology, 1917

(Pages 11-29)

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1917

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director

Professional Paper 108 B

THE NEWINGTON MORAINE

MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS

BY

FRANK J. KATZ AND ARTHUR KEITH

Published March 15, 1917

Shorter contributions to general geology, 1917

(Pages 11-29)

WASHINGTON

&0VERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1917
CONTENTS.

Page.

Introduction............................................................................................ 11

General character of the region. ........................ , t ................................................. 11

Location and disposition of the moraine.................................................................... 12

General character of the moraine.......................................................................... 13

Local details............................................................................................ 14

Saco segment......................................................................................... 14

Biddeford segment............................................................. ..................... 14

Kennebunkport segment.............................................................................. 15

Merriland Eidge (Wells segment)..................................................................... 15

Morainal deposits' in South Berwick................................................................... 16

Morainal deposits in Dover........................................................................... 16

Newington and Portsmouth segment.................................................................. 17

Bye, North Hampton, and Hampton segment.......................................................... 20

Morainal deposits in Greenland....................................................................... 20

Hampton Falls, Seabrook, and Salisbury segment........................................................ 21

Newburyport segment. .............................................................................. 21

Observations by Upham. ............................................................................ 22

Observations by Sears................................................................................ 24

Other ice-front deposits of the region....................................................................... 24

Northward extension of the Newington moraine............................................................. 25

Southward extension of the Newington moraine............................................................. 26

Relation of the moraine to other Pleistocene formations..................................................... 26

Boches moutonn^es and till.......................................................................... 26

Marine sediments.................................................................................... 26

Evidence that the moraine was laid down in the sea........................................................ 27

Position of the moraine with respect to direction of ice movement........................................... 27

Becessional nature of the moraine......................................................................... 28

Discontinuity of the moraine.............................................................................. 28

Age of the moraine...................................................................................... 28

Summary-............................................................................................... 29

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATE IV. Map of New England coastal region from Plum Island, Mass., to Casco Bay, Maine .................. 12

V. A, B, Gravel pit in Biddeford, Maine......................'..................................... 14

VI. A, B, Merriland Bidge, Wells, Maine............................................................ 15

VII. South side of railroad cut across Merriland Bidge, Wells, Maine.................................... 16

VIII. A, West side of inner slope of Newington moraine on Bay Side road in Newington, N. H.; B, Sand

pit in Pine Hill Cemetery, Dover, N. H....................................................... 17

IX. Map of parts of Newington, Greenland, and Portsmouth, N. H., and diagrammatic sections showing

relation of the Newington moraine to rock and till and^Pleistocene marine sediments............ 18

X. A, B, Moraine gravel on New Boad, Portsmouth, N. H............................................ 18

XI. Wiggins gravel pit, Portsmouth, N. H................................... v ........................ 19

XII. A, Gravel pit on Middle road, Portsmouth, N. H.; B, Gravels and sand, perhaps of kame origin, in

Sunset Hill. Eliot, Maine ................................................................... 24

FIGURE 1. Diagrammatic section of moraine and outwash deposits of Merriland Bidge, Wells, Maine............ 16

ii
THE NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND

MASSACHUSETTS.

By FRANK J. KATZ and ARTHUR KEITH.

INTRODUCTION.

The present paper embodies the results of 

brief studies in 1915 and some earlier observations (1911-1914) on glacial and associated 

deposits in Maine and New Hampshire. It is 

preliminary in character, and the work was 

incidental to more extensive and detailed 

studies of the Pleistocene geology of southwestern Maine and vicinity, which will be the 

subject of later publications.

The fact that a belt of gravelly and sandy 

ridges in southwestern 1 Maine and adjacent 

New Hampshire has the character of a terminal 

moraine was recognized by the authors while 

they were together engaged in geologic reconnaissance. The moraine was first noted in 

Biddeford and Wells, Maine, and in Newington 

and Portsmouth, N. H. Mr. Keith traced the 

course of the moraine from Rye, N. H., to 

Newbury Old Town, Mass.; the portion in Newbury and Newburyport, Mass., had been noted 

by Sears. 1 Mr. Katz subsequently studied 

the moraine from Saco, Maine, to Rye, N. H. 

The late Prof. C. A. Davis was for a time in the 

field with the authors and contributed to the 

results here announced. His familiarity with 

the geography and geology of the region about 

Portsmouth was of assistance hi tracing the 

moraine.

Earlier geologic writings that are of interest 

as discussions of Pleistocene geology of the 

same region are limited to three Warren Upham's chapter, "Modified drift," in Hitchcock's 

"Geology of New Hampshire," volume 3; J. H. 

Sears's " Geology of Essex County, Mass.," 

cited by full title below; and F. G. Clapp's 

"Complexity of the glacial period in northeastern New England." 3

1 Sears, J. H., The physical geography, geology, mineralogy, and 

paleontology of Essex County, Mass.,pp. 296,301, map, Essex Institute, 

Salem, 1905.

2 Geol. Soc. America Bull., vol. 18, pp. 505-556,1907.

The nam0 here adopted is taken from the 

town of Newington, N. H., in which the moraine 

is characteristically developed and forms a 

prominent topographic feature. The time of 

the Newington moraine will be designated the 

Newington substage.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE REGION.

The region in which the Newington moraine 

is situated is a coastal lowland from 12 to 20 

miles wide, bounded on the landward side by 

an upland that rises inland by a series of thoroughly dissected rock platforms or terraces. 

The coastal lowland, which also includes several similar but lower terraces, is a hilly, 

heavily drift-mantled rock surface, rising from 

below sea level to about 300 feet above sea 

level. The rock floor of this terraced surface 

is thoroughly dissected into ridges separated 

by wide, open valleys, some of which are in 

part worn to depths below the present sea 

level. Some ridges, for example the Bauneg 

Beg Ridge, project from the upland terraces 

into the lowland area, and some monadnocklike rock hills or outliers of the higher terraces, 

notably Mount Agamenticus, rise above it.

The entire region has been rigorously glaciated and abundantly supplied with glacial 

deposits of many kinds. During part of the 

glacial epoch the coastal terraces were submerged beneath the sea, but since then they 

have emerged. During the period of subsidence 

marine clays and sands were deposited in the 

depressions, and these deposits are now to be 

seen as broad, flat areas only slightly dissected 

by a very young drainage system. Davis 3 has 

shown that "The present shore line is therefore 

not the direct result of submergence of a rugged 

land, but of the emergence of an uneven sea

s Davis, W. M., Physiography, in Grabau, A. W., and Woodman, 

J. E., Guide to localities illustrating the geology * * * of the vicinity 

of Boston, p. 5, Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1898.

11
12 SHOETEE COJSTTEIBUTIOJSTS TO GEJSTEEAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

bottom uneven because the marine clays that 

were spread upon it had not been deposited in 

sufficient quantity to smooth over its previous 

inequality."

The glacial and marine deposits have modified and in general softened the relief of the 

region and have deflected many of the streams 

from the preglacial rock valleys. Nevertheless, the general trend of the principal drainage 

lines is now, as formerly, southerly to eastsoutheasterly. The marine deposits increase 

in breadth and thickness and indicate greater 

submergence toward the north and northeast. 

The surface of these deposits now slopes southeastward (toward the sea), and, furthermore, 

the broad plains of marine clay and sand lie 

at higher elevations in the northern part of the 

region than in the southern part. There appears, then, to have been some tilting. These 

relations, however, may be in part explained as 

due to differences in the degree of filling caused 

by differences in the quantity of material discharged into the sea at different localities and 

in the distance of the several localities from 

the shore line and the sources of the materials. 

The Pleistocene marine sediments of this region 

and the associated problems of coastal movements and delineation of shore lines are now 

being studied.

LOCATION AND DISPOSITION OF THE MORAINE.

The drift formations here considered are distributed along a sinuous 60-mile course in York 

County, Maine, Strafford and Rockingham 

counties, N. H., and Essex County, Mass.1 

They lie nowhere more than 9 miles from the 

present Atlantic coast and in some places are 

adjacent to tidewater. Their distribution is 

shown on the accompanying map (PI. IV).

The moraine does not form a continuous 

ridge but is made up of a number of segments, 

more or less widely separated by intervals in 

which no deposits belonging to a terminal moraine have been found. Nevertheless, there is 

a conspicuous alignment of the segments, as 

displayed on the map (PI. IV), which supports 

the conclusion that all are parts of the same 

moraine. The arrangement and extent of the 

several segments and intervals are as follows:

1 This region is represented on the following maps of the United States 

Geological Survey's topographic atlas: Portland, Biddeford, and Kennebunk, Maine; Berwick and Dover, Maine and N. H.; and Newburyport, N. H. and Mass. All these maps, except that of the Portland quadrangle, are of reconnaissance grade, and therefore too much generalized to 

bring out features like those described.

Beginning at the north, the first is the Saco 

segment, in the western part of the city of Saco, 

Maine, on the north bank of Saco River just west 

of Deep Brook. It is a little less than a, quarter of a mile long and trends southeast. Between the Saco segment and the next One, the 

Biddeford segment, is a short interval occupied 

by Saco River and its flood plain. The Biddeford segment has its north end south of the 

Saco segment, on the south side of Saco River, 

in Biddeford, and extends south-southeast for 

nearly a mile, and thence west of south along 

the west side of the post road for 1-J miles, 

finally turns southwestward and ends near the 

granite hills in the southern part of the town 

of Biddeford. Beyond an iliterval of 1J miles 

to the southwest, across granite hills, is the 

next segment, the Kennebunkport, which is a 

ridge H miles long with souuiwest trend. 

About 7 miles to the southwest, across Kennebunk, Mousam, and Branch rivers and the 

flat lowlands adjoining them, is the WeUs segment or Merriland Ridge. This ridge has a 

sinuous course about 7 miles long, trending 

south for a mile, then swinging westward and 

finally southwestward and terminating about 

2 miles east of North Berwick village, against a 

massive hill of granite. About 2^ miles southwest of this point there is a small area of probably morainal sands and gravels. Two miles 

farther south is the Knights Pond segment, 

a crescentic ridge inclosing the southeast end 

of Knights Pond, in the northwest comer of 

the town of South Berwick. The succeeding 

interval, measured to either the Dover or the 

Dover Neck segment, is approximately 8 miles 

across areas of ground moraine (till), marine 

clay and sand, and rock ledges.

The Dover segment, including Pine Hill 

Cemetery, in the city of Dover, is an irregular 

area from half to three-fourths of a mile wide. 

This is separated by an interval of cla7 plain 

and till-covered rock hills, 1 mile wide, in a 

southeast direction from the Dover Neck segment, which is a north-south ridge 2* miles 

long between Little John Creek "on the north, 

Dover Point on the south, and Piscataqua and 

Bellamy rivers on the east and west, respectively. Across Little Bay, 1 mile south of the 

end of the Dover Neck ridge, is the north end 

of the Newington and Portsmouth segment, 

which extends south about 2| miles a]ong or 

near the eastern shore of Great Bay, thence 

east three-fourths of a mile to Newington Town
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 PLATE IV

(Moraine ridges of sand,

Outwash sand and gravel

Moraines not correlated with

the Newington, and gravel and

sand ridges, possibly moramal

Clay and sand horizontally stratified, containing a marine fauna and

and eravel contemporaneous with

and younger than the Newington

Sand plains and valley trains,

outwash of later date than New

Roek "anchors" against which 

the moraine is deposited

Blank areas chiefly rock 

and ground moraine

Geology fy fTJ.fta** and AJCeitA 4Z

MAP OF NEW ENGLAND COASTAL REGION FROM PLUM ISLAND, MASS., TO CA8CO BAY, MAINE, SHOWING

DISTRIBUTION OF MORAINE AND OUTWASH DEPOSITS.

NEWINGTGN MOBAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIBE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 13

Hall, southeast 3 miles to Portsmouth Plains, 

south 1 mile to Peverly Hill, and south into the 

swamp along Berrys Brook. The part of the 

moraine between Newington and Peverly Hill 

is shown on Plate IX (p. 18). The Rye, North 

Hampton, and Hampton segment, beginning 

south of Berrys Brook opposite the end of the 

Newington and Portsmouth segment, extends 

west-southwest through Rye Center and West 

Rye 2 miles to Breakfast Hill, south and west 

of which, in North Hampton, morainal deposits 

are irregularly distributed over a broad area of 

several square miles. North of this area, in 

the town of Greenland, is an outlying moraine 

ridge If miles long from north to south. From 

North Hampton the moraine continues southward through Hampton village into Hampton 

Marsb, north of Taylor River. The Hampton 

Falls, Seabrook, and Salisbury segment begins 

in Hampton Falls, 1^ miles southwest of the 

preceding segment, and extends south and 

south-southwest through Seabrook and Salisbury to Merrimack River. The Newburyport 

segment begins in Amesbury and runs southeast across Merrimack River and for 7 miles in 

a nearly straight course into Newbury village, 

whence it extends south-southwestward for a 

short distance to Parker River. The moraine 

has not been traced beyond this point.

The above-outlined disposition of moraine 

segments indicates that the ice front of the 

Newington substage from Saco, Maine, to Newbury, Mass., a distance of 59 miles, had a general south-southwest course, though it was not 

straight. From Saco through Wells the line 

indicated by the segments was nearly 15 miles 

straight southwest. Beyond Wells, through 

North Berwick and South Berwick, Maine, and 

Rollinsford and Dover, N. H., the front was 

bowed 2 miles westward through another 

stretch of 15 miles around the Mount Agamenticus mass, which was a barrier to eastward ice 

movement. From Dover it swung southeasterly for 8 miles through Newington and Portsmouth into Rye, being held south of Piscataqua 

River, probably by the influence of both the 

Agamenticus highland and the Piscataqua estuary. This southeasterly stretch and the succeeding west-southwesterly course of 4 miles in 

Rye and North Hampton outline a small lobe, 

caused by the Great Bay depression. From 

North Hampton the general course of the ice

front was south-southwest for 11 miles to Merrimack River, with a slight easterly bowing. 

South of Merrimack River its course has been 

traced for about 8 miles in a southeasterly 

direction, determined by the river, from Amesbury to Newbury Old Town.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE MORAINE.

The Newington moraine is a ridge ranging in 

height from 40 to 100 feet above its base and 

in width from a few rods to a mile or more. 

It consists of a western inner or ice-contact 

slope, the summit or moraine crest, and in 

some places an outer slope with which is associated an outwash apron. These parts are 

not everywhere distinct. The inner side is 

generally steep, rising abruptly the full height 

of the moraine from ground moraine or marine 

clay plains. The crest, whether narrow or 

broad, is nearly everywhere flat and approximately level. It is hummocky in only a few 

places, nowhere markedly so. It does not 

exhibit the typical knob and kettle form of 

kame moraines, nor the rough surface of till 

and boulder moraines. Where kamelike forms 

have been developed, as in Newburyport, 

Kennebunkport, and Dover, and locally in 

Newington and Portsmouth, they are small and 

subdued in form and relief. As a rule, kettle 

holes are few, isolated, and small. In Newburyport and North Hampton, however, there 

are groups of good-sized ones. Where the 

moraine does not lie against rock hills the 

outer side is a moderate slope descending to 

clay plains or merging into an outwash apron 

or else a low scarp between the outwash and 

the moraine crest. Outwash plains were not 

formed everywhere, and some of them are not 

distinct from the moraine. They are smooth 

gentle slopes a few rods to 1^ miles wide and 

locally pass gradually in both slope and constitution into broad flats of marine clay and sand.

Within a moderate range the moraine ascends and descends with the relief of the floor 

upon which it stands. Thus it rises out of the 

valley of Saco River upon the small rock hills 

in Biddeford and descends again into the 

valley of Kennebunk and Mousam rivers. In 

Wells and South Berwick it attains its greatest 

elevation of about 200 feet on the flanks of a 

large obstruction of high ground. Southwest 

of this locality it descends to sea level in Pis-
14 SHOBTEE CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

cataqua River. However, the maximum difference in altitude of different parts of the 

moraine does not exceed 200 feet.

The materials of the moraine are boulders, 

gravel, and sand. With the exception of some 

of those at one place, all the boulders and 

pebbles observed are foreign to the locality of 

the moraine. A very small amount of stratified clay has also been noted in the moraine, 

but no till has been identified in morainal deposits of typical Newington form. Boulders 

are not abundant as a rule but have been found 

in considerable numbers in the north end of 

Merriland Ridge, Rye Center, and Greenland. 

Gravelly sand and gravel made up of large 

cobbles, small pebbles, and sand predominate 

in the moraine. These materials are all more 

or less washed and water-rounded. The outwash materials are gravel and sand, dominantly 

of small size, and are progressively finer toward 

the farther limit of the outwash.

The moraine has in many places a welldeveloped internal structure consisting of a 

sorting and stratification approximately parallel to the cross profile of the moraine. Beds 

that are nearly flat in the center dip outward 

into and constitute the proximal part of the 

outwash plain. In several places in Biddeford, 

Newington, and Portsmouth the inner side of 

the moraine is made up of beds dipping strongly 

and in part parallel to the surface slope. These 

"backset" beds are well developed in the 

broader parts of the moraine and were deposited 

during slow retreat of the ice. In places in 

Newington the moraine contains structureless, 

unsorted sand and gravel. Irregularly distributed patches of sand and gravel were noted 

in Saco and Portsmouth.

LOCAL DETAILS. 

SACO SEGMENT.

The moraine in Saco is very narrow and inconspicuous; it consists of aligned sandy 

knolls almost covered by the sur.rounding clay 

and sand plain. The ridge extends northwest 

toward a till-covered rock hill, from which it is 

separated by nearly half a mile of horizontal 

sand plain. In two pits marine clay and overlying sand lie above the moraine material, 

which consists of waterworn sand, gravel, and 

boulders, not stratified but in pell-mell structure. Pebbles of moderate size predominate, 

although there are also numerous large boulders. 

The materials in these pits are not weathered.

BIDDEFORD SEGMENT.

Opposite the Saco segment is the north end of 

the Biddeford segment, also covered by clay. 

A broad mound of stratified sand overlain by 

marine clay on the north side of Main Street, 

Biddeford, is the northernmost recognizable 

part. Thence the moraine continues southeastward, rises above the clay as a gravel 

cover on the south-southwest slope of the 

rocky hill in the center of the city, and extends 

as far as Elm Street (the post road), where it 

forms a flat-topped sand plain that en the 

east in part abuts against higher granite hills 

and in part grades into a clay plain. From 

this plain the moraine narrows to an evencrested ridge which trends southwest on the 

west side of the post road for about a mile. 

This ridge is 160 to 180 feet above sea level, 

and from it the descent to the northwest is 

moderately steep for about 50 feet to a low 

area floored by rock ledges, ground moraine, 

and marine clay. On the southeast side, however, the ridge is only locally marked off by 

a low scarp and slight change in slope frem the 

bordering sandy outwash plain, which slopes 

gently southeastward and merges into a clay 

plain. The difference in slope and altitude 

between the two sides is a most striking feature 

in a view from the top of the moraine. From 

the post road the moraine turns westward and 

decreases in height. It trends toward the 

granite hills on the edge of the town of Fennebunkport but ends at the low pass immediately east of those hills.

The make-up of the Biddeford segment is 

disclosed in a number of gravel pits and sand 

banks from which material is taken for railroad, highway, and construction work in and 

around Biddeford. Two cuts on the summit 

and the large gravel bank worked by th^ railroad on the northwest side of the high ridge 

along the post road show that the material is 

made up of gravel and boulders packed in a 

sandy matrix without sorting or stratification 

and at least in part lying on granite ledges. 

The material is all more or less waterworn and 

rounded, and in the summit cuts it is iron 

stained and partly rotted. A sand pit near 

the junction of the post road and the Alfred 

pike, near the moraine border of the outwash 

plain, shows 20 feet of stratified and approximately horizontal sands. Pits in the northwest slope of the ridge and on the north side
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 PLATE V

A. UPPER PART OF PIT.

Shows 15 feet of rudely stratified moraine gravel.

B. LOWER PART OF PIT.

Well-stratified sand and gravel on inner slope of moraine. These sands are overlain by the gravel

shown in A.

GRAVEL PIT IN BIDDEFORD, MAINE.
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 PLATE VI

MORAINE FRONT AND OUTWASH, MERRILAND RIDGE, WELLS, MAINE.

In the upper view the moraine front is fairly smooth and not sharply separated from the outwash. 

In the lower view the moraine is scalloped and more sharply separated from the outwash.
NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 15

of the Alfred pike expose 15 to 20 feet of sand 

and gravel. (See PI. V.) This material is 

for the most part stratified and sorted, although 

but poorly so, and the beds dip strongly 35°- 

45° W. that is, they are " backset" beds. The 

pebbles and boulders, the latter not uncommonly 2 feet and rarely 3 feet in diameter, are 

almost1 all rounded. Although some of them 

are somewhat polyhedral, like faceted pebbles 

or soled boulders, they have been so much 

rounded off that plane surfaces, other than 

joint or cleavage faces, are scarce. In these 

exposures beds of sand or small pebbles containing a few scattered larger pebbles are overlain by gravel beds containing 4 to 6 inch 

cobbles and many boulders. In all the gravel 

beds there is a closely packed matrix of sand 

and small pebbles.

The prominent part of the Biddeford segment is the ridge along the post road. The 

southwest end of this ridge, which is low and 

inconspicuous, trends toward and terminates 

near rock hills that are higher than any part 

of the moraine. The northeast end of this 

ridge lies against the higher rock ledges in the 

city, and the morainal gravels and sands continue to the north as a cover on the flank of 

these ledges. The northern part of the Biddeford segment and the Saco segment connect 

rock hills on both sides of Saco River. It is 

clear that these rock hills determined the form 

and position of the ice front and that the low 

ground between them was the site of the discharge of the glacial drainage of Saco Valley.

Between the Biddeford and Kennebunkport 

segments is an interval of 1^ miles occupied 

by hills of granite that stand about 50 to 100 

feet higher than surrounding areas. These 

hills for the most part are bare rocks, but in 

places they have a drift cover, no part of which 

has yet been recognized as belonging to a 

terminal moraine.

KENNEBUNKPORT SEGMENT.

The Kennebunkport segment is a narrow 

southwestward-trending ridge 1J miles long 

and for the most part only 30 to 100 rods wide, 

though it widens to nearly three-quarters of a 

mile at its southwest end. It is made up of a 

number of coalescent sandy kamelike knolls 

and includes in its higher and broader southern 

part a few small rock ledges. This segment of

the moraine springs from the south side of the 

granite hills, against which on the north the 

Biddeford segment terminates. On the east, 

north, and west the Kennebunkport segment 

is bordered by wide plains of marine clay and 

sand. These deposits fill the valleys of Kennebunk, Mousam, and Branch rivers, and except for detached protuberant hillocks of 

rock and ground moraine they bury all other 

formations. It is 7 miles south-southwest 

across these'filled valleys, in which no termjnalmoraine deposits have been found, from the 

Kennebunkport to the next segment.

MERRILAND RIDGE (WELLS SEGMENT).

The moraine of Merriland Ridge is terminated 

at both ends by granite hills. The north end 

springs from a small, low granite knob on 

Merriland River,, in the town of Wells, about 

2 miles above the mouth of the river. From 

this rock knob the moraine extends southward 

for a mile as a generally flat but in a small 

way hummocky area one-fifth mile to 1 mile 

broad. Over this area are scattered numerous 

large boulders, which, however, are more 

abundant on the western part of the broadest 

portion; the eastern part has fewer boulders 

and is more sandy. Southwestward from this 

broad, flat part the moraine is narrower, higher, 

and more sharply ridgelike, and from a point 

about 1J miles north of west of Wells Beach 

station through a distance of 3^ miles westsouthwest the moraine is a prominent sigmoid 

ridge which rises abruptly 40 to 50 feet above 

low and wide meadows 011 the northwest. (See 

Pis. VI and VII.) Through this distance it 

has a nearly level and generally smooth or 

gently undulating crest, at an altitude of about 

200 feet above sea level. The crest is in some 

places only a few rods in width and in others 

several hundred yards. The southeast slope of 

this part of the ridge is short, 10 to 20 feet 

high, and steep. It is in places somewhat irregularly scalloped or ribbed and breaks sharply 

into a very gently sloping outwash apron of 

gravel and sand. In other places this southeast slope is smooth and merges gradually into 

the outwash apron. (See PL VI.)

The moraine is prolonged 1| miles farther 

west, retaining its sharp ridge form. In this 

stretch it approaches the nearly parallel north 

slope of a large granite hill, against which it
16 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

ends at a point about 2 miles east of North 

Berwick village. Through this end of the 

moraine some ledges of granite protrude.

The material constituting the northern part 

of this moraine is largely bouldery gravel. 

Elsewhere, as seen on the surface, it is chiefly 

sand and gravel of moderate size. The only 

section found is the railroad cut through Merriland Ridge, the south bank of which is shown 

in Plate VII. The height of this section is 

about 35 feet. The material in it is stratified 

small gravel and sand, with a little clay and 

relatively few small and large boulders. The 

attitude of the beds, which is faintly indicated 

in the photograph, is in approximate parallelism with the front or east side of the moraine. 

The bedding has a low easterly dip under the 

outwash plain and rises to a greater inclination 

under the crest, and then with lessened dip the 

beds are cut off at the back slope. This attitude is shown in figure 1. The clay seam,

territory north and west disclosed no morainal 

deposits, but in South Berwick, at 2£ miles 

southwest of the end of the Merriland Ridge 

segment and on the west flank of the rock hills, 

was found the feature next described.

MORAINAL DEPOSITS IN SOUTH BERWICK.

Ill South Berwick, If miles southeast of 

North Berwick village, there is a small arer, of 

sand and gravel that fills a saddle between rock 

hills. No distinctly morainal features were 

noted here, but the position of this drift and its 

similarity in character to the drift of Merriland 

Ridge are suggestive of morainal origin. In 

1890 Leonard H. Davis 1 regarded this drift as 

a moraine.

Three to four miles southwest of this area 

of sand and gravel is the ridge inclosing the 

south end of Knights Pond. This ridge h a 

crescentic belt, convex to the south, of small 

contiguous sand and gravel knolls which preMoraine crest

ft.R. level -~-C/3y bed

FIGURE 1. Diagrammatic section of moraine and outwash deposits of Merriland Ridge, Wells, Maine, showing the structure of the moraine.

visible as a dark streak at about the center of 

the section in the photograph, thickens very 

slightly eastward out to the limit of its exposure, and on the west it thins and is replaced 

by coarse sand. In appearance and composition this clay is very much like the marine 

clay of the region in general. The entire outwash apron along this part of the moraine 

slopes down to and grades into the low, flat 

sand and clay plains about the headwaters of 

Webhamiet River.

The continuation of the moraine was not 

sought in a southerly direction from the end 

of Merriland Ridge, because rock hills that are 

very much higher, culminating in Mount Agameiiticus, 692 feet in altitude, extend for many 

miles southward and occupy a large area in 

the towns of Wells, South Berwick, and York. 

The westward swing of Merriland Ridge at 

nearly constant level against and around the 

north side of this high rock mass indicates that 

during the Newington substage the ice did not 

ascend these hills. A reconnaissance of the

sent a continuous smooth, even slope toward 

Knights Pond. There are no well-exposed 

sections in this ridge, and consequently - its 

form and position with respect to the pond are 

the only evidence of its morainal character.

From Knights Pond to Dover, 8 miles southwest across the valley of Salmon Falls River, 

there are no known terminal moraine deposits.

MORAINAL DEPOSITS IN DOVER

Pine Hill Cemetery, in Dover, N. H., is on a 

roundish kanielike hill 150 feet above sea level, 

or 60 to 70 feet above the adjoining plains of 

marine sediments. The hill extends east half 

a mile to a higher rock ridge and has a sloping 

southerly extension of 0.4 mile. A sir all 

rock ledgo protrudes through gravels and sand 

0.1 mile southeast of the summit of the hill. 

The higher central part of the nill is cornpored 

of unsorted gravels of moderate size in a sandy 

matrix. A gravel and sand pit in the cemetery, 

near the eastern limit of the kame area, exi Unpublished notes filed in the TJ. S. Geological Survey.
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 PLATE VII

SOUTH SIDE OF RAILROAD CUT ACROSS MERRILAND RIDGE, WELLS, MAINE.

Stratified gravels, sand, and clay constitute the moraine and outwash.
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 PLATE VIII

A. WEST SIDE OF INNER SLOPE OF NEWINGTON MORAINE ON BAY SIDE 

ROAD IN NEWINGTON, N. H.

The flat surface in the foreground is sandy marine clay.

B. SAND PIT IN PINE HILL CEMETERY, DOVER, N. H.

Shows irregularly bounded beds and pockets of sorted sands and fine gravel.
NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 17

poses 15 feet of sandy material and has not cut

through to the bottom. Plate VIII, B, shows

a part of this section. Sand and fine gravel are

very irregularly interspersed throughout the

exposed section except at the top, which is

clayey and more evenly layered; small gravel,

in which the pebbles are less than half an inch

in size, is more abundant toward the bottom.

All the material is to some extent stratified, in

general unevenly so, and as a rule the coarser

material is the more uneven. The photograph

brings out the irregular but sharp boundaries

of the various kinds and grades of material.

This is distinctly kame structure. Upham 1

refers to "the kamelike plain" of Pine Hill

..Cemetery and implies a connection between it

,,and the sand and gravel plains north of Dover,

^which, however, are now believed to be out-

,awash deposits of a later stage^,,

About 2 miles southeast of Pine Hill is the 

north end of the Dover Neck Ridge. This 

ridge is 2£ miles long, three-quarters of a mile 

wide, and 100 feet high near its north end, half 

a mile wide and 130 feet high 1 mile farther 

south, and about 100 yards wide and 40 feet 

high at its south end. The ridge is nearly 

symmetrical except in the broadest northern 

part, where the crest is nearer the west side 

and the eastward extension has the form of an 

outwash plain. The surface of the ridge is for 

the most part smooth, although in places it is 

very slightly hummocky. The material seen 

on the surface and also in small openings is 

gravel and sand. There are thin interstratified 

seams of sand and clay covered by small gravels in a cut near the summit, and near by is a 

small ledge of slate. On the sides are variously inclined sand beds which appear to grade 

toward and are not topographically distinct 

from the marine clay that fringes the ridge. 

The eastward expansion at the north end is a 

sandy plain that slopes toward and merges into 

a flat plain of marine clay.

NEWINGTON AND PORTSMOUTH SEGMENT.

The moraine has been more carefully studied 

in Newington and Portsmouth than elsewhere. 

Its form and constitution in those towns are 

described below.

Beginning on the shore of Little Bay east of 

Fox Point, the moraine extends 1.1 miles

i Upham, Warren, in Hitchcock, C. H., The geology of New Hampshire, vol. 3, pt. 3, p. 153, 1878.

70469° 17 2

across Fox Point and south along the shore, 

rising abruptly to a height of 40 to 60 feet to a 

narrow ridge at about 500 feet from the bay. 

A recent sea cliff 25 feet in height has been cut 

along part of this slope. The eastward descent 

is gradual and smooth through one-eighth to 

one-fourth mile to the level of the bay, or to 

flat plains of marine clay approximately 20 

feet above sea level. The materials making up 

this ridge, as shown in cliffs on the shores and 

gravel pits on the crest, are sand and abundant 

well-rounded gravel, generally of moderate 

size but grading from small pebbles to large 

cobbles and containing also a few boulders. 

However, in the north end, where the moraine 

directly overlies slaty rock, many angular 

fragments of that rock are mixed with the 

gravels. South of the above-described section 

the moraine is very much broadened, owing 

to the east-southeasterly trend of its outer 

(easterly) border, whereas the inner margin 

continues southward for 1J miles. The principal axis or crest of the moraine in this part 

curves from a southward to a nearly eastward 

trend toward Newington Town Hall. In the 

part where the greatest width is nearly a mile 

the height of the moraine is 60 to 80 feet and the 

surface is hummocky, being composed of small 

kame knobs and kettles. The material here 

is gravel and sand, dominantly sandy on the 

surface, and unsorted gravels and sand were 

seen in one pit. From Newington Town Hall 

the moraine trends east of south 1J miles along 

the Greenland road to Gosling Road. Its 

width is half to three-quarters of a mile, and its 

top is broad and flat and stands at an elevation 

of about 100 feet. The descent to the west is 

fairly steep and about 20 to 30 feet high (PL 

VIII, A), but the eastward descent is less in 

amount and gentle. Near the town hall a rock 

ledge included in the moraine makes two small 

outcrops. Elsewhere the surface is sandy and 

bears a few boulders. Unassorted sands, 

rounded gravels, and small boulders are exposed in a b'ank west of the town hall.

Plate IX shows the position and outline of the 

moraine from Gosling Road in Newington to 

Peverly Hill in Portsmouth. The westerly 

boundary of the moraine in this length is sharp 

and marked by an abrupt change in slope. 

In places, particularly near New Road and at 

Peverly Hill, the morainal gravels present to 

the west steep walls and buttress-like forms
18 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

that could have been made only by accumulation of the gravels against a retaining mold 

the ice front. In two places, however, at the 

inner margin of the moraine there are flat or 

nearly flat-lying sands and gravels, which 

are not distinctly separated from morainal 

materials on. the one side and from low clay 

plains on the other. Although the exact 

nature and origin of these sandy flats has not 

been determined, it seems probable that they 

are the result either of deposition hi small 

bodies of water ponded between the moraine and 

the ice after the ice had locally melted away 

from the moraine, or else of reworking and 

redeposition of the morainic materials by marine waters that flooded the region after the 

withdrawal of the ice.

The summit of the moraine is about half a 

mile wide along Gosling Road, is smoothly 

level, sloping inappreciably east, and grades 

into a narrow eastward-sloping outwash apron. 

South of Gosling Road the moraine is both 

narrower and lower and is not distinct from 

outwash on the east and a flat sandy plain on 

the west. Farther south, however, it rises 

to a flat gravelly top 90 feet in elevation and 0.4 

mile wide on New Road. Here it has a steep 

west side, rising 50 feet out of a clay meadow, 

and a sinuous east border marked by a low 

scarp between the moraine and its outwash, 

near which it is pitted by a few small kettle 

holes. The flat top is continuous from New 

Road southeast to Middle Road, a distance of 

1J miles, in which it ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 

feet in width and descends from about 90 feet 

above sea level to 75 feet. The western slope 

is steep but is in part mantled at its foot by a 

belt of sand on very gentle slopes. The frontal 

scarp is pronounced and 10 to 20 feet high 

in this reach but vanishes east of Sherburne 

Road. The outwash plain is continuous for 

4 miles from a point north of Gosling Road 

to a point a quarter of a mile northeast of 

the corner of Sherburne and Middle roads. 

It is an almost perfectly smooth surface, having 

a very gentle eastward slope, through which 

there is a gradual transition from gravel and 

coarse sand to clay. There is no natural 

boundary between this clay and the outwash, 

and there is no other basis for the line on the 

map than the limit of the wet, dead-level area 

of the clay plain.

Along Middle Road the moraine trends eastward and is rather lower than the parts already 

described. Here its surface is composed of 

irregular knolls of small size. Its limits are 

sharply defined against rock, till, and clay surfaces on the south and a clay meadow on the 

north. Portsmouth Plains is a flat expanse of 

sands and gravels making the crest of the moraine, which north and east of Portsmouth 

Plains abuts against rock hills.

From Portsmouth Plains the moraine extends southward for about a mile to Peverly 

Hill. In that distance it is comparatively low 

and narrow, and north of Sagamore Creek is 

made up of small knobs of sandy gravel including a small, shallow, circular kettle. South of 

the creek the moraine is a flat-topped bench of 

gravel and sand about 40 feet in elevation, lying 

against the rock mass of Peverly Hill. In one 

place through a length of 100 feet or more the 

flat top of the plain does not quite reach the 

rock, there being a small and shallow depression or "foss" between them. The flat gravel 

bench extends along the northwest side of 

Peverly Hill and is continued eastward in a 

plain that surrounds the hill and descends by 

moderate slopes northward into the Sagamore 

Creek marshes and by gentle slopes eastward 

to rocky hills east of Lafayette Road. The moraine extends as a broad, smooth ridge of gravel 

southward from Peverly Hill across Lafayette 

Road to Bellyhack Swamp (Berrys Brook).

Gravel and sand pits and road cuts give the 

following data on the constitution of the moraine in Newington and Portsmouth:

At the junction of Sherburne and Greenland 

roads, hi Newington, in that part of the moraine which has a high, broad, flat top, the 10 

to 15 feet of material immediately next below 

the summit is gravel, for the most part well 

rounded but containing also many boulders 

that have planed surfaces. The pebbles are 

not assorted as to size, yet there is a distinguishable succession of layers dipping about 

15° W., and of these the upper layers are more 

abundantly composed of finer gravel and snnd 

and the lower of coarser stuff.

In the same part of the moraine, at the junction of Gosling Road and the Greenland road, 

in Newington, an excavation of 3 to 4 feet in a 

flat sandy plain (1, PI. IX) contains fine yellowish sand with relatively few rounded peb-
U. 8. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSI

Base and 

Moraine Mo

Marine day 

C ; Sand and ferayel 

Rock and tm

SECTION ALONG 

MAP OF PARTS OF NEWINGTON, GREENLAND, AND PORTSMOUTH, N. H., AND DIAGRAMMATIC S

RELATION OF THE NEWINGTON MORAINE TO ROCK AND TILL AND PLEISTOCENE MARINE S

Sand'snA gravel j Outwash Marine cl^y Marine cl&y

Rock and tffl

SECTION ALONG LINE A-

NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 19

bles or boulders and some rock fragments. 

No stratification is shown.

On the Sherburne road hi Portsmouth, half 

a mile east of the excavation last noted, there 

are a pit (2, PI. IX) and a road cut which show 

approximately 15 feet, measured down from 

the moraine surface, of large cobbles mixed 

with small pebbles and sand, which are like the 

material in excavation 1, but without apparent 

stratification. One-eighth mile to the south is 

a sand pit (3, PI. IX), west of the Sherburne 

road, in the place where the moraine ridge is 

low and not distinct from the outwash plain. 

Here, the flat sandy top of the ridge shows 3 

feet of yellow sand containing much dust and 

fine claylike rock flour, scattered pebbles 2 

inches or less in diameter, and a few cobbles 

as large as 6 inches. This material is die void of 

stratification and hence is not outwash but 

morainic dump.

In the cut on New Road (4, PI. IX; see also 

PL X), at the west edge of the flat-topped 

moraine crest, there are exposed 10 to 12 feet 

of boulders and coarse gravel packed in fine 

gravel and sand, without clay or other cementing material. The material here, as in 

all but one other exposure, that near Little 

Bay, is dominantly of foreign origin, being 

composed chiefly of granite gneiss, pegmatites, 

basaltic porphyries, and much fine-grained micaceous graywacke gneiss, such as are not 

indigenous to the coastal towns of New Hampshire. Although there are many faceted boulders and pebbles, the dominant forms are 

round and subrounded, and none of them are 

striated. All the materials are surficially more 

or less iron-stained, giving to the bank as a 

whole a light rusty-brown color, and many of 

the pebbles and boulders are rotted. A small 

part of the west end of this exposure (PL X, A), 

through a thickness of 3 to 4 feet at the top, 

shows a faint trace of stratification parallel to 

the back slope of the moraine (' 'backset" 

beds).

In the Wiggins gravel pit, near Middle and 

Sherburne roads, in Portsmouth (5, PL IX; see 

also PL XI), there are undulating beds of interstratified clean sands and fine gravels which 

abut directly against unsorted coarse rusty 

gravels lightly packed with sandy material but 

not cemented. Weathering has produced a 

black rust varnish on pebbles and boulders 

and has rotted the gabbroid rocks.

The city gravel pit on Middle Road, Portsmouth (6, PL IX; see also PL XII, A, p. 24) 

shows stratified material consisting of gravel 

and sand beds and intercalated clay seams that 

have a southerly dip and are therefore "backset" beds. The gravel consists of pebbles, for 

the most part well rounded and under 6 inches 

in size, but the number of larger and only 

partly rounded and faceted cobbles is considerable, and they show prominently because of 

a lack of pebbles of intermediate sizes. The 

sand and gravel are loose and friable, but the 

clayey seams are stiff and project from the 

face of the bank.

On Peverly Hill Road low gravel banks (7 

and 8, PL IX) show loose gravels and sands 

mostly unsorted and unstratified. A small 

cut on the north side of the road exposed in 

1914 a vertical section of 8 to 10 feet of wellstratified small gravel, sand, and sandy clay, 

dipping 30° W. and about parallel to the surface of the moraine; the upper 3 to 4 feet was 

gravel and the lower part sand. A lens of 

finely laminated clayey sand lay between 

gravel beds near the top of the section, and 

these beds were in abrupt discordant contact 

with unsorted gravels that were a]! strongly 

iron-stained to the full depth of the exposure. 

Many of the pebbles had the form of faceted 

blocks whose edges and planes had been somewhat rounded. Immediately above this pit, 

in the flat summit of the moraine, where it 

lies against Peverly Hill, is another pit (10, 

PL IX) 8 to 10 feet deep, which shows evenly 

stratified, approximately horizontal sand and 

fine gravel lying on rounded glaciated ledges.

A short distance southwest of Peverly Hill, 

near the inner edge of the moraine, there is a 

shallow cut (12, PL IX), showing small 

rounded gravel and sand, stratified and dipping southwest, resting against glaciated 

ledges. The city gravel pit on Lafayette 

Road (the Boston post road) near Sagamore 

Creek (11, PL IX) contains about 20 feet of 

stratified gravels and sand.

The continuation of the moraine southward 

from the part shown in Plate IX has not been 

closely studied. It is, however, known south 

of Berrys Brook in Portsmouth and Rye. In 

Rye Center the moraine is a prominent boulder 

and gravel ridge, which is narrow and has 

steep sides, but it broadens and rises to the 

southwest, where it abuts against a rock butte
20 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

east of West Rye. Thence the gravel ridge 

runs westward to Breakfast Hill, which is 

essentially a rock ledge but is partly mantled 

by the morainic materials. These materials 

are exposed in cuts along Lafayette Road, 

where they consist of stratified waterworn 

gravel and sand having a southerly dip. The 

moraine continues in a southerly direction 

from Breakfast HiU as a sandy gravel ridge 

with broad plainlike top extending to Hampton village.

RYE, NORTH HAMPTON, AND HAMPTON 

SEGMENT.

The portion of the moraine lying in Rye, 

North Hampton, and Hampton forms a flattopped ridge running westward from Rye 

almost to Greenland depot and thence southward through North Hampton and Hampton, 

where it slopes southward and passes under 

Hampton Marsh. The morainal deposits of 

Greenland, described below, may be an outlying part of this segment. North and west 

of this segment lie low valleys along the heads 

of Berrys Brook and Taylor River, and the 

moraine stands above them with a welldefined scarp. These bounding valleys are 

floored in the main with rock covered with a 

thin coating of till and marine clay. Surfaces 

of this character practically surround the 

outlier near by in Greenland. The morainal 

ridge slopes gently eastward and merges very 

irregularly iiitQ the low till slopes with numerous rock ledges that extend to the sea.

Most of the ridge is more than 100 feet above 

the sea, as is also the Greenland section. The 

two highest points are a mile north of North 

Hampton village and in Hampton village. In 

outward form the morainal deposits of these 

towns are nearly everywhere outwash plains, 

made up of two distinct benches or terraces, 

from 15 to 20 feet apart, both of which are 

well seen in North Hampton and Hampton. 

In most places these terraces or plains have 

little visible slope, but locally they have a 

decided dip. This dip is best seen about a mile 

south of North Hampton village and also in 

the southerly part of Hampton village, where 

the plain slopes southward under the marsh. 

The westward scarp is usually to be seen and 

marks well the old position of the ice front. 

Along or near this are numerous kettle holes, a 

fine group of them appearing hall a mile north 

of North Hampton village. The contrast

between the flat-topped moraine and the valleys at the west is best seen in the village of 

North Hampton, where the moraine forrrs a 

westward-facing scarp of nearly 40 feet. 

Hummocky moraines, till ridges, or kames 

have not been found in this segment of the 

moraine. In the western corner of Rye, w] ^re 

the moraine turns southward, a rock hill 

projects 20 or 30 feet above the plain level and 

appears to have formed an anchor for the ice. 

Numerous other ledges project through the1 

moraine, rising as high as any of its parts, a^ 

for instance in Hampton village. * 

The two terraces or benches mentioned above 

are formed by layers of hard gravel between tfife 

sandy portions t>f the morainal deposit. Although there are numerous minor exposure0 of 

these beds, there are no complete sections. A 

small pit at the west end of North Hampton 

shows about 20 feet of gravelly sand vdth 

waterworn pebbles. Usually the surfacer of 

the plains or terraces are sandy with scattered 

small pebbles, and as a rule even a small cutting 

below these surfaces exposes gravel. In general the amount of, gravel appears to be so'newhat greater in Hampton than it is farther 

south or east. The sections observed showed 

sorting and rough bedding of the.materials -

MORAINAL DEPOSITS IN GREENLAND.

In Greenland, N. H., there are two areas of 

morainal deposits that extend south from the 

center of Greenland village along a coTirse 

marked by the highway to North Hampton 

village. They are about 2 miles west of the 

Newington moraine in Portsmouth and, taken 

together, are in a general way parallel tc it, 

but they also trend toward the broad area of 

morainal deposits in North Hampton, as if 

they formed a protrusion from that area. The 

deposit in Greenland village forms a broad, 

flat-topped ridge that descends to a narrow sag 

about half a mile south of the village wl^ich 

separates the northern from the southern p<\rt. 

The moraine rises southward rather steeply 

from this sag to a narrow, flat-topped ridge 

about 125 feet above sea level and 1J nriles 

long in a south-southwest direction. The vest 

side of the moraine is a short and steep slope 

toward the low clay plain of Winnicut River, 

but the opposite side is a broad and gentle 

sandy wash slope which merges into the clay 

plains on the east.
NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE, STEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 21

Upham x describes the morainal deposits in 

Greenland as a "kame." He says:

The academy in Greenland is built on a broadly rounded, 

kamelike ridge of gravel, which at a short distance to the 

southwest becomes a nearly level plain 40 or 50 rods wide 

[Greenland Parade] but still farther to the southwest is 

narrowed to a typical kame. The length of this deposit is 

a half mile. Its height is nearly 100 feet above the sea.

At a schoolhouse half a mile south from the academy 

we rise to a plain about 125 feet above the sea, which extends a mile to the south and southeast, descending with 

a gentle slope 25 to 40 feet in that distance. This plain 

forms the highest land between Winnicut River and 

Berrys Brook. Its northwest portion is quite thickly 

strewn with boulders, the largest of which are 5 or 6 feet 

in diameter, and over nearly its whole extent these have 

been sufficiently abundant for walling the fields. Four 

wells, however, between the schoolhouse and the Eastern 

depot [Greenland depot, on the Eastern division of the 

Boston & Maine Railroad], varying from 20 to 30 feet in 

depth, passed all the way through stratified gravel, sand, 

and blue clay. In three of these wells the upper portion 

was fine gravel or sand. One of them, a half mile southeast, and a cistern a quarter of a mile south from the 

schoolhouse, showed at the top 10 feet of very coarse but 

waterworn gravel, which was underlain by clear sand.

The moraine in Greenland marks a halt of 

the ice at a short distance back from the small 

lobe of the Newington moraine in Rye and is 

seemingly very little younger. *

HAMPTON FALLS, SEABROOK, AND SALISBURY 

SEGMENT.

Morainal deposits of the next segment consist almost wholly of outwash sand and gravel 

plains except in Hampton Falls, where a small 

ridge of till is exposed. This ridge starts in the 

center of the village and runs southwest for 

nearly a mile. Along its western border the 

sand plains of this segment pass very irregularly between a group of till-covered rock hills 

and drumlins in the town of Salisbury, Mass. 

In Seabrook, N. H., the moraine is bordered on 

the wes.t by the low valley of Hampton Falls 

River, which is underlain mainly by till with 

scattered rock ledges. Eastward the sandplain surfaces pass beneath the marshes of 

Salisbury and Hampton, except for a small 

area in South Seabrook, where till with scattered rock ledges rises a little above the general 

surface of the sand plain.

The sand-plain characteristics are very well 

marked, especially between Salisbury and East

i Upham, Warren, op. clt., pp. 162-163.

Salisbury, and there are also wide stretches of 

well-developed plain in Seabrook. Although 

these plains are in general nearly horizontal, 

there are locally strong dips for instance, 1 

mile southwest of South Seabrook, where 

there is a marked dip to the southeast. In 

Salisbury and East Salisbury there is a gentle 

though not obvious dip which results in the 

disappearance of the plain below the level of 

the salt marshes. Rock outcrops are comparatively common in these lower portions of the 

sand plains, but there seems to be no causal 

relation between the position of the rock surface and the plain.

The deposits of the sand and gravel plains 

of this segment lie in three benches or terraces, 

at the edges of which hard beds of gravel 

appear. Two of these benches are seen in 

most of Seabrook and in the northern part of 

Salisbury. The third bench is seen only in 

northern Salisbury about a mile west and 

southwest of South Seabrook. The lower two 

benches are about 20 feet apart; the upper two 

are about 15 feet apart and are separated by a 

heavy bed of fine white sand that is well exposed 

near the water tower a mile southwest of South 

Seabrook. The gravel is usually fine and 

makes a smaller proportion of the morainal 

deposits than the gravels of the Rye and 

Hampton segment. The gravels appear to 

rest upon marine clay along the edge of the 

marsh at East Salisbury and also along the 

small brook about a mile northwest of East 

Salisbury.

NEWBURYPORT SEGMENT.

The next segment of the moraine runs southeastward from Amesbury through Newburyport to Parker River in Newbury. Most of 

this segment is separated from the Salisbury 

segment by Merrimack River and the adjacent 

marshes. During the formation of this part of 

the moraine, however, the sand outwash plains 

probably extended northeastward into those 

of the south end of the Salisbury segment. 

The moraine in this segment in general takes 

the form of a distinct ridge bordered by gently 

sloping sand plains on the northeast. The Newburyport ridge is for most of its length flanked 

on the southwest by a low valley containing 

numerous rock outcrops or rocky hummocks
22 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

thinly covered with till. In its northwestern 

part, however, the moraine abuts against a 

high rocky ridge through which the Merrimack 

has cut its course, thus separating about a 

mile of the moraine from the main part in 

Newburyport.

This segment of the moraine varies much in 

height. At its northwest end it forms a group 

of kames about 150 feet above the sea. These 

diminish in height within a short distance and 

pass southward and southeastward into a welldeveloped sand plain ("Grasshopper Plains") 

about 100 feet above sea level, which fills in 

the area between the rock ridge above mentioned and the morainic ridge.

"Grasshopper Plains" has a broad, nearly 

level surface of more than 1 square mile, which 

is markedly pitted near High Street in Newburyport by kettle holes ranging from a few 

yards to 200 and 300 yards across and reaching 

40 or 50 feet in depth. The smaller kettle 

holes are round and regular in shape but some 

of the largest are less regular and have hummocky and ridged bottoms. From " Grasshopper Plains" southwestward through Newburyport the moraine is a narrow ridge with a 

definite southwestward-f acing ice-contact scarp 

30 to 50 feet in height. Part of this scarp, between 1 mile and If miles west of the railroad, 

is comparatively steep and is notably ribbed, 

with deep and sharp reentrants toward the 

north and northeast between the ribs, resembling the buttressed forms on the ice-contact 

side of parts of the moraine in Newington. 

Elsewhere this slope, although smoother and 

less steep, is well marked for a distance of over 

4 miles, to the point where the ice front turned 

southwestward around the drumlins in the 

village of Newbury. In that distance its 

summit diminishes gradually in altitude from 

80 feet above sea level at the northwest to 20 

feet at the southeast. The crest of the moraine 

lies along and for the most part south of High 

Street in Newburyport. It is in general a 

smoothly shaped ridge decreasing gradually in 

height toward the southeast, but in it there are 

several large kettle holes. On the northeast 

side the morainic ridge is bordered by an outwash plain of sand which slopes eastward (in 

part northeastward to the tidal basin of Merrimack River). ' Through a distance of 2 miles 

between "Grasshopper Plains" and the freight

railroad the moraine stands above the outwash 

plain and is set off from it by an abrupt frortal 

scarp, which in places is 15 to 20 feet in height 

and is slightly sinuous or scalloped in trend 

where best developed. To the northwest p,nd 

the southeast there is less and in many places 

no topographic distinction between the moraine crest and the outwash. In the form of 

its slopes and in its relation to low meadows on 

the one side and higher, gently sloping sr.nd 

plains on the other side, the Newburyport ridge 

presents features almost identical with those 

of Merriland Ridge and the moraine in Bid deford. The moraine in Newburyport extends, 

diminishing in width and height, to the drumlins in Newbury and appears also on the southeast side of these drumlins as a narrow gravel 

terrace from 10 to 20 feet above sea level.

The moraine is composed entirely of srnd 

and gravel in this segment. The materials are 

not now well exposed at any point, but a thickness of about 40 feet is shown in the railroad 

cuts in the city of Newburyport. Upham reports that wells in Newburyport show a maximum depth of 90 feet of sand and gravel. The 

materials are waterworn and appear from the 

poor exposures to be stratified, with, gertle 

northeasterly dips. A gravel pit just northeast of the drumlins of Newbury shows about 

20 feet of sand and gravel in which the pebbles 

are as much as 6 inches in diameter. The beds 

are roughly stratified and approximately horizontal, and they rest directly on large ledges1 of 

bedrock. No bedrock projects through the moraine except at the border of the high send 

plain in the western part of Newburyport end 

also at the turn of the moraine next to the 

drumlins in Newbury. At these two localities 

the bedrock hills seem to have checked the advance of the ice.

OBSERVATIONS BY UPHAM.

Upham 1 made the following observations on 

the features herein described as the Newington 

moraine and on associated deposits in New 

Hampshire. It must be remembered in reading these extracts that the term "kame" as 

used by Upham in 1878 connoted deposits tl at 

were supposed to have been laid down by 

streams flowing between retaining walls of glacial ice that is, in crevasses or between ice

'• Op. cit., pp. 150,155-156,164, and 170-172.
NEWINGTON MOKAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 23

lobes or between an ice wall and a valley 

wall from which the ice had withdrawn.

In Newington and Portsmouth a kamelike plain of gravel 

and sand is the highest land between Great Bay and the 

Piscataqua River, but their shores, with the islands of 

this river below Portsmouth, are almost everywhere gently 

sloping hills of till or ledge.

Marine shells and other organic remains have been 

found in the lower portions of this valley [Piscataqua 

basin], showing that the ocean stood at a higher level 

when the modified drift in which they occur was 

deposited. * * *

Kames and kamelike plains about Dover and southward.— 

Near the coast from Dover to Newburyport are'frequently 

found massive kamelike deposits, consisting of high plains 

or broadly rounded ridges of gravel and sand, which often 

form watersheds between wide valleys 100 to 200 feet 

below. The absence in these valleys of the terraces which 

mark erosion through modified drift shows that they were 

never filled with the same materials and that these remarkable plains and ridges were deposited in their present 

isolated position, with wide areas of lower land at each 

side. How this took place we can only explain by referring the formation of these deposits to the same causes 

which produced the kames. The ice sheet still remained 

unmelted upon each side at the time of their deposition, filling the valleys and wide areas of lowland, over 

which this gravel and sand must otherwise have been 

spread by the current of the floods on which they were 

brought.

The most extensive of these plains occur * * * in 

Newington and the northwest part of Portsmouth. Broadly rounded deposits of the same class occur frequently in 

this district, and southward, along the seacoast, they form 

the elevations on which the villages of Rye, North Hampton, and Hampton are built. A very interesting ridge of 

this kind extends from northwest to southeast through 

Newburyport. * * *

The last of these kamelike deposits which remains to be 

described within the limits of Piscataqua basin is the ex=- 

tensive plain of Newington and the northwest part of 

Portsmouth. This is 3 miles long from north to south, and 

for most of this distance averages a mile in width, forming 

a plateau 60 to 100 feet above Great Bay and Piscataqua 

River on each side. Outcropping ledges and scattered 

boulders are seen in many places upon its surface, but 

numerous wells show only modified drift to depths of 30 

or 40 feet, being first coarse gravel, 3 to 10 feet in thickness, 

succeeded below by interstratified fine gravel and sand. 

The entire western edge of this deposit is a gently sloping 

escarpment, which descends 10 to 30 feet. On the north 

and east it rests mainly on ledges but at one place falls 

in an abrupt slope more than 50 feet. A section at its 

base in the north part of Newington showed sand overlain 

by gray clay, as at Dover. Southward, near the Concord 

& Portsmouth Railroad, its surface is sand, obliquely stratified. Between this and the Eastern Railroad it is changed 

to a broad ridge, 25 to 30 feet high, composed mostly of 

pebbles 6 inches to a foot in diameter, packed as compactly as possible, with no layers of sand. This gravel 

is finely exposed in an excavation, from which it is teamed 

2 miles for repairing streets in Portsmouth. The deposit

terminates southeast from the Eastern Railroad in a small 

plain of horizontally stratified sand. * * *

Modified drift along the seacoast.—The oldest and most 

prominent deposits of modified drift near our coast are 

kamelike hills, elevated plains, and broad ridges, composed of gravel, sand, and clay. * *< * The gently sloping hill on which Rye village is situated, nearly 100 feet 

above the sea, is mainly stratified gravel from 25 to 40 feet 

in depth. It is coarse for the first 10 feet, with the largest 

pebbles a foot in diameter; below, it is fine but has little 

clear sand. The character of these deposits will be seen 

from the following sections of wells, 1 to 1J miles southwest 

from Rye village, on the watershed south of Berrys 

Brook, and about 100 feet above the sea:

1. At J. Philbrick's (county map) [on the northwest side 

of Washington Road, 1.05 mile west of Rye Center], said to 

be the deepest well in Rye, coarse gravel, 25 feet; - sandy, 

gray clay, very compact, free from pebbles, 28 feet; total 

depth, 53 feet. The only rock found in the clay was an 

angular block weighing about 200 pounds, 40 feet below 

the surface.

2. Near L. Brown's [on the northwest side of Washington 

Road, 1.15 miles west of Rye Center], coarse gravel, 8 feet; 

sand, 8 inches; coarse gravel, 6 feet; very coarse gravel, 10 

feet, much of it composed of rounded rocks of nearly/ uniform size, about a foot in diameter, with scarcely any earth, 

so that "one could look down among the pebbles;" ordinary gravel, with layers of sand, 20 feet, resting on ledge; 

total depth, 45 feet.

3. At R. Shapley's [about 1.4 miles S. 65° W. of Rye 

Center], coarse gravel, 10 feet; fine white sand, 15 feet, 

resting on till or ledge.

Several other wells in this neighborhood, 30 to 40 feet in 

depth, encountered nothing but stratified gravel, sand, or 

clay.

Breakfast Hill, about 150 feet above the sea, and the 

plain about 50 feet lower, which extends southward to the 

first railroad crossing in North Hampton, are composed of 

coarse gravel and sand. Thence similar deposits, 100 to 

125 feet above the sea, extend in nearly level plains southwest to North Hampton village, forming the watershed 

between Winnicut River and the ocean. They are 

bounded in many places by escarpments which descend 

steeply 25 to 50 feet, and a hollow, about an acre in extent 

and 50 feet deep, is half filled by Knowles Pond. This 

formation continues southward with nearly the same 

height to Hampton village, where it terminates, falling 

in gentle slopes toward the sea.

Nine miles farther south part of the city of Newburyport 

is built on a broadly rounded ridge of gravel and sand, 

which, like the foregoing deposits, probably had a similar 

origin with the narrow and steep ridges of the kames, having been bounded by portions of the melting ice sheet. 

The series of kames noticed by Rev. Mr. Wright in Newton and Amesbury may be continuous southeast to the 

Newburyport ridge. So far as traced, this deposit appears 

first in the south part of Amesbury. It has been cut 

through by Merrimack River and on its opposite side rises' 

to a height of about 150 feet in Moultons Hill. A quarter 

of a mile farther to the southeast it is depressed to 75 feet 

and shows the sharp ridges and knolls of typical kames. 

From this point it extends, with a nearly uniform height 

of about 100 feet, along High Street to the middle of the
24 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

city and thence continues on the southwest side of this 

street to the Upper Green. Here it is interrupted for a 

little distance, beyond which it lies on the northeast side of 

this street, extending to within a half mile of Old Town 

Hill. It is thus at least 6 miles long. No other high 

deposits of modified drift are found in this vicinity, and 

wide areas of lowland lie on both sides. Excavations in 

the northwest part of the city show the ridge there to be 

composed mainly of waterworn gravel, with the largest 

pebbles about a foot in diameter. A railroad cut, known 

as Marchs Hill, 2 miles farther southeast, has only occasional layers of gravel, with the largest pebbles 6 inches in 

diameter, very irregularly stratified with sand, which is 

here four-fifths of the whole deposit. The depth of 

modified drift forming the ridge is shown by wells to be 

from 50 to 90 feet.

OBSERVATIONS BY SEARS.

Sears noted the ridge in Newbury and Newburyport and some sections in it that are not 

now exposed. He regarded it as partly 

moraine and partly barrier beach. The following quotation 1 shows that his interpretation of the position of the ice front with respect 

to the moraine differs from that of the present 

authors:

TheMerrimack River was probably a halting place of the 

glacial ice in its retreat northward, for its southern shore, 

from the mouth of the Parker River to Pipestave Hill, 

marks typical ice contacts of morainal till and overwash 

gravels capped by sand and silt. High Street, in Newbury and Newburyport, is laid out upon the top of the 

terrace formed by this ice contact, a section of which 

shows it to be composed of boulder till and clay beds resting 

upon the glacial bedrock * * * in varying depths. 

At Grasshopper Plain it is at least 50 feet in thickness and 

is covered by 20 feet of coarse gravel with 25 feet of fine 

sand at the surface. * * * A section of this terrace 

across High Street extending from the river through Green 

Street to the frog pond by "the Mall" gives boulder till on 

High Street at an elevation of 80 feet above tidewater. 

The frog pond is the site of a small detached iceberg that 

was buried in the morainal till. South of "the Mall" the 

overwash and outwash gravels have formed a series of cones 

and short ridges or kames of sand and gravel extending 

southeasterly into Newbury. The tracks of the Boston & 

Maine Railroad cut through these gravels on the west, and 

the track of the City Freight Railroad cuts through them 

on the east. In 1898 this cut exhibited a good section of 

the deposits some 300 yards in length. The gravels and 

sands dipped to the south at an angle of 35° and were 

capped by a deposit of clay having sand partings every few 

inches. The greatest depth of the gravel and sand was 40 

feet. North of the center of the hill there was a dip 20 feet 

deep filled with clay having fine sand partings, and under 

the clay, at the bottom of the dip, there was a mass of peat, 

probably the site of an iceberg in the gravel before the clay 

was deposited.

i Sears, J. H., The physical geography, geology, mineralogy, and 

paleontology of Essex County, Mass., pp. 296, 301, and fig. 169, p. 352, 

Salem, Essex Institute, 1905.

South of Oak Hill Cemetery there is a "kettle hole." 

* * * It is a typical small ice-block hole with southeastern outwash sand and gravel kames, probably deposited in cracks or gorges in the glacial ice which filled the 

whole valley of Little River.

High Street, in Newbury, is built on sand and grave1 that 

cap clay and till, a typical beach barrier sloping ba~k to 

the lagoon at Four Rock Creek. The debris is washed 

away from the outcropping ledges that rise above the 

boulder till covering the surface. This beach barrier with 

the lagoon on the shore side occupied the whole cf the 

Little River valley and was continuous on the southwest 

around Old Town and Little Old Town hills. A gorge 

between these hills, now filled with coarse waterworn 

gravels on'top of boulder till, was the drainage outlet to the 

southeast. In front of the gravels the outwash sands 

spread out over Newbury Old Town, to the mouth of 

Parker River, where steep banks and fringing lobes er.tend 

into the salt marsh overlapping the boulder till.

OTHER ICE-FRONT DEPOSITS OF THE REGION.

In this region there are a few other ice-f^ont 

or morainic deposits which do not seem to be 

related to the Newington moraine and yet are 

of interest in connection with the subject of 

this paper by reason of their bearing on the 

interpretation of the glacial history of the 

region. The most distant of these is the 

moraine which lies across the south end of 

Lower Bay, Sebago Lake, Maine, 18 miles north 

of the Saco segment. This is a gravel rfdge 

trending southwest to west-southwest, r^ing 

steeply 50 to 60 feet from the lake level, and 

presenting a very gentle southward slope of 

gravel and sand in which there are several 

deep pits occupied by ponds. At the lake the 

outwash slope has an altitude of 300 feet above 

the sea and is composed of coarse sand and 

gravel. About 11 miles southwest, at an 

altitude of 200 feet, the outwash is very fine 

sand which grades imperceptibly into marine 

clay.

The moraine at Bauneg Beg Pond, 3| miles 

north of North Berwick village (PL IV, p. 12), 

in the towns of North Berwick and Sanford, 

Maine, is several miles west of Merriland Ridge. 

It surrounds the south end of Bauneg Beg 

Pond as a hummocky, "knob and kettle" 

surface which grades eastward and southward 

into the broad sand plain that overlies marine 

clay in Wells and North Berwick.

The moraines at Bauneg Beg Pond and Sebago 

Lake lie several miles back from the Newirgton 

moraine, at the western edge of the coastal 

lowland. Besides these moraines and their 

outwash deposits, there are extensive sand
U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 108 PLATE XII

A. GRA.VEL PIT ON MIDDLE ROAD, PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

Shows stratified gravel, sands, and clay in the inner side of the moraine, containing here 

and there larger but little-rounded cobbles.

X.*.- *V % W^

R GRAVELS AND SAND, PERHAPS OF KAME ORIGIN, IN SUNSET HILL, ELIOT,

MAINE.

Poorly sorted, unevenly stratified gravel.

NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE,, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 25

plains that front the highlands and valley 

trains in the valleys that debouch from the 

highlands upon the coastal lowlands, as, for 

example, in the valleys of Salmon Falls, 

Mousam, Little Ossipee, and Saco rivers, 

which seem to indicate other moraines or at 

least ice-front positions correlative with the 

moraine at Sebago Lake. The outwash from 

these later ice halts is larger in amount and 

more broadly and deeply SJtfead over the 

region. In places the later outwash covers the 

Newington deposits and extends beyond them 

to the present shore line.

In Eliot and Kittery, Maine, there are a number of hills (indicated by moraine symbol 

on PI. IV), wholly or in part composed of 

stratified drift, which lie a short distance east 

(outside) of the Newington moraine. The 

stratified gravels and sands of these hills are 

seemingly kame or other ice-front deposits 

which show no relation to one another nor to 

the Newington moraine. They do not appear 

to mark any definite or continued stand of the 

ice front. The following have been noted, 

and there are doubtless others in the region. 

In Kittery there is a broad, flat-topped ridge 

of gravels and sand in which the Boston & 

Maine Railroad Co.'s gravel pit exposes a 

thickness of about 40 feet of well-sorted and 

stratified materials. An area of stratified 

sands and gravels lies immediately east of Bolt 

Hill, a drumlin, in Eliot. At Greenacre, in 

Eliot, and including Frankfort Island, in 

Piscataqua River, is a narrow patch threequarters of a mile long of low, hummocky 

knolls which are distinctly kamelike and are 

composed of waterworn gravel and sand. 

Sunset Hill, in Eliot, is probably composed 

largely of till but contains in its northern part 

thick deposits of stratified sands and gravel, 

perhaps of kame origin (PI. XII, B).

These scattered kamelike or moraine-like 

deposits east of the moraine indicate no prolonged halt in the retreat of the ice before the 

front reached the Newington position.

NORTHWARD EXTENSION OF THE NEWINGTON 

MORAINE.

In the town of Saco (see PL IV and the map 

of the Portland quadrangle), from Goosefare 

Brook to Stuart Brook, for If miles along the 

Boston-Portland post road, is a line of smooth,

flat-topped ridges about 100 feet in elevation, 

composed of sand and small gravel which is in 

part water-rounded, sorted, and stratified. 

These ridges rise only a few feet above the surrounding plains of marine clay and sand except 

where rock ledges having the same northeast 

trend protrude through the gravels. These 

ridges are 4 miles northeast of the Newington 

moraine at Saco River and are separated from it 

by a lowland consisting chiefly of clay. They 

may be an extension or an equivalent of the 

Newington moraine, but the observed facts 

indicate rather that these ridges are to be 

classed with other northeastward-elongated o

hills in the Portland quadrangle, such as part 

of Oak Hill, Pleasant Hill, and Sandy Hill, 

which are drift-covered ledges having superposed mantles of stratified gravels formed by 

the reworking of their till and other drift by 

the sea, which at the same time deposited clay 

in the low places around them. There are no 

other drift deposits farther northeast in the 

Portland quadrangle that can be regarded as 

morainal. If there were such a northeastward 

extension of the moraine it may have been 

destroyed after the Newington substage by 

strong streams that discharged from the Sebago 

Lake or younger ice fronts through the territory 

now largely covered by marine clays in Saco, 

Scarboro, South Portland, and Portland. It 

is more likely that any moraine deposited in 

this region, where the pre-Newington bedrock 

and till surface is generally low (being now in 

large part below or only slightly above sea level), 

would have been buried by the later marine 

deposits. Morainal material has not been observed where it might be expected on rock surfaces that protrude above the level of the marine 

clay and are in the line of general trend of the 

Newington moraine. It may be inferred, therefore, that the Newington ice front departed from 

this trend either seaward by the advance of a lobe 

through the Saco and Scarboro lowland or else o

northward. Southeastward lobation is not attested by any known deposits of morainic materials. To the north, on the other hand, in the 

northwest corner of the Portland and the northeast corner of the Buxton quadrangles, in Gorham and Buxton, there are gravel ridges and a 

kamelike gravel hill (PL IV) which may well 

be parts of the moraine. They are about 2 to 8 

miles south of the moraine at Sebago Lake and
26 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

approximately on the line between that moraine and the Saco segment of the Newington 

moraine, which is 12 miles farther south. On 

this line also is the rock ridge north of the Saco 

segment, which may be a link between moraine 

segments like the rock hills between the Biddeford and Kennebunkport segments. The conditions thus afford a weak suggestion of connection between the Newington moraine and 

the moraine at Sebago Lake. The latter, however, may belong wholly or in part to a later 

substage, for its gravel and sand outwash in 

the main is continuous with and in part overlies the clay and sand plains, which can be 

traced without interruption or break in their 

nearly plane surface to and over the moraine 

in Saco.

SOUTHWARD EXTENSION OP THE NEWINGTON 

MORAINE.

The Newington moraine was not traced 

southward and southwestward beyond Newbury. Very probably correlative deposits will 

be found when that region is studied.

RELATION OP THE MORAINE TO OTHER 

PLEISTOCENE FORMATIONS.

ROCHES MOTJTONNEES AND TILL.

All the moraine segments noted lie in part 

on roche moutonnee surfaces and by inference 

also on ground moraine, or till. They have 

not been found to overlie stratified drift or 

such marine sediments as abound in the region. 

Glacially sculptured ledges lie both inside and 

outside of the moraine in fact, all the ledges in 

the region have been glaciated. Till also is 

found on both sides of the moraine, and there 

are no perceptible differences between any of 

the exposures of till seen in the region. No 

till has been found in or on the typically developed moraines.

MARINE SEDIMENTS. 1

Marine clay and associated sand beds, in 

the "main horizontally stratified and in a few 

places fossiliferous, form extensive plains of 

sedimentation throughout the region, both 

east (outside), and also north and west (inside) 

of the moraine. In a few places the clay is 

sandy or contains sandy lenses and beds, and 

over a large part of this region, particularly at 

the north and west, the top beds are clean sand.

1 These formations, the so-called "Leda clay" and overlying sands, as 

developed in southwestern Maine and southeastern New Hampshire, are 

the subject of another paper, to be published later.

Some of the clay lying outside of the moraine 

is contemporaneous with and stratig^aphi^ally 

equivalent to the moraine. This relation is 

best shown at Merriland Ridge, where, ir the 

railroad cut (PI. VII and fig. 1), a bed of clay 

identical with that in the broad plains of marine deposits is intercalated in the sand and 

gravel beds of the moraine and outwash. At 

that locality also the entire outwash plain 

slopes down to and grades into a low, swampy 

sand and clay plain about the headwaters of 

Webhannet River. It is clear that this clay 

bed records a period of quiet discharge of 

glacial waters during which they carried to 

and deposited on the moraine only the f nest 

of glacial detritus rock flour and mud. At 

other periods such materials were born<> or 

drifted seaward and deposited in deeper or less 

disturbed waters than those at the ice front, 

and there formed the plains of which the flat 

in the valley of Webhannet River is one. This 

particular plain probably received no appreciable contributions of outwash during stages 

later than the Newington substage, because it 

is some distance away and cut off by rocky 

uplands from the Kennebunk and Mousam 

valleys on the north and the Great Works and 

Salmon Falls valleys on the southwest. It was 

from points farther up these valleys that the 

outwash of later stages came. On that account 

the marine clay deposits in the lower parts of 

these valleys are more extensive and at higher 

altitudes than in the coastal territory between 

the drainage basins of these streams. In ether 

places the earlier clay deposits and some of the 

sandy outwash of the Newington substage are 

covered by more or less clay discharged into 

the sea from more northerly and later stands of 

the ice, during the time when clay was accumulating behind and upon the inner slope of the 

moraine. In Saco and Biddeford, along Saco 

River, excavations for gravel and sand ehow 

that the clay overlies the northwest side of the 

moraine and in places covers the crest. In 

most places where the marine clay borderr the 

inner side of the moraine the surfaces of the 

two formations meet at an angle, and there is 

no significant mingling of their materials, as 

there is on the opposite side. Wells along: the 

western base of the moraine in Portsmouth 

show that the clay does not pass under the 

moraine but lies against it. The inference to 

be drawn from this fact is that all the deposits 

of marine clay and sand lying inside the New-
NEWINGTON MORAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 27

ington moraine are younger than that moraine. 

Furthermore, these deposits are traceable inland into the broad sand plains and valley 

trains shown on the map (PL IV), which are 

evidently glacial outwash from ice that stood 

some miles back of the Newington moraine. 

However, all the clay in this region, from the 

lowest and oldest bed to the highest and 

youngest, must, for the following reasons, be 

regarded as a stratigraphic unit that was deposited uninterruptedly during a period perhaps beginning before the Newington substage 

but certainly continuing through and after it. 

First, the clay can be traced as a continuous 

deposit from points well inside of the moraine 

through such breaks as are made by Saco, 

Kennebunk, and Salmon Falls rivers in the 

moraine ridge to areas outside of the moraine. 

Second, careful scrutiny of the surface forms of 

the clay deposit,* of sections in the clay, and of 

the physical character of the clay itself fail to 

reveal any basis for subdivision of the clay 

into younger and older deposits.

EVIDENCE THAT THE MORAINE WAS LAID DOWN 

IN THE SEA.

The foregoing observations on the relation 

of the Newington moraine to marine sediments indicate that the ice front stood in the 

sea at the time and place of deposition of this 

moraine. This conclusion is established by 

the following evidence:

1. The surface of the moraine, as shown 

above, is in most places fairly smooth or is 

hummocky only in a small way by reason of 

knolls that are low and have gentle slopes, in 

contrast to the characteristically knobby kame 

forms, and in large part the crest of the moraine 

is broad and flat. Furthermore, although the 

material of the moraine is predominantly 

rounded, water-transported, and accumulated 

by glaciofluvial discharge, the form is not 

that of moraines accumulated subaerially but 

is like that of a delta or a line of many laterally 

confluent deltas, as for example in Biddeford, 

Wells, Newington, North Hampton, and Seabrook.

2. These very nearly level and broad, flat 

delta-like tops are all near the sea and are not 

separated from it by any present obstructions

1 The writer's observations offer no support for subdivision of the clay 

on the basis of "distinct topographic types," as postulated by F. G. 

Clapp (Complexity of the glacial period in northeastern New England: 

Geol. Soc. America Bull., vol. 18, pp. 505-566,1907).

as high as the moraine. Therefore, unless it is 

postulated that an ice block, of which there is 

no evidence, or some high land not now remaining separated the moraine area from the 

ocean, there could have been no body of 

standing water not part of the sea at the required place and altitude to determine the 

form of the moraine.

3. In Merriland Ridge the interlamination 

of clay with moraine and outwash material, 

and the continuity there indicated of the sand 

and gravel beds in the moraine with marine 

clay beds in the plains to the east show that 

the debris from the glacier was discharged 

directly into the ocean.

4. Although the wide, level plains of marine 

clay were deposited in situations open to the 

disturbing influence of river, tidal, and storm 

currents, the clay is characteristically uniform 

in composition and texture and in the attitude 

of its bedding. Therefore the clay must have 

been deposited in quiet water namely, in this 

instance, water whose surface was considerably 

above the levels up to which the clay plains 

were built and in consequence probably deep 

enough to submerge the moraine.

POSITION OF THE MORAINE WITH RESPECT TO 

DIRECTION OF ICE MOVEMENT.

The general direction of ice movement in 

this region was south-southeastward, as is indicated by numerous striae and also by a few 

drumlins. In the neighborhood of Biddeford, 

Maine, the striae trend S. 10°-15° E., and 

from Biddeford southwestward the easting increases with seeming regularity to S. 40° ± 5° E. 

in the neighborhood of Portsmouth, although 

there are local exceptions. The ice flow was 

in accord with the general southeasterly land 

slope and approximately parallel to the trend 

of the major drainage lines. The moraine segments in Biddeford, Kennebunkport, Wells, 

South Berwick, Rye, the Hamptons, Seabrook, 

and Salisbury are then approximately athwart 

the general course of ice movement, and such 

departures of the moraines from that trend as 

are indicated by the map are accounted for by 

the influence of the local topography of the 

rock floor.

On the other hand, the Dover Neck, Newington and Portsmouth, and Newburyport segments are in part oblique to and in part even 

nearly parallel to the general direction of ice 

movement. The explanation of this seeming
28 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO GENERAL GEOLOGY, 1917.

discordance is found in the fact that the 

moraine is predominantly the product of accumulation of the load of effluent glacial 

waters and is not pushed material. It might 

therefore lie at any site on the margin of the 

ice which permitted the discharge of glacial 

streams, regardless of the normal form of the 

front with respect to the direction of ice advance. 

The factor that ^n all probability chiefly determined the form of the ice edge in the vicinities 

of Portsmouth and Newburyport was the destruction of the glacier by calving of bergs and 

melting in the deep waters of the Piscataqua 

and Merrimack estuaries. Thus reentrants 

were made in the ice front. Probably also 

subglacial drainage in large volumes was discharged at these low points and assisted in 

cutting back the front.

RECESSIONAL NATURE OF THE MORAINE.

A large number of exposures of drift deposits 

have been observed in the course of five seasons' field work on the general geology of 

southwestern Maine and the adjacent part of 

New Hampshire, particularly in the regions 

of Portland, Maine, and Portsmouth, N. H., 

which have been closely examined. In none 

of these exposures is there any evidence of 

more than one ice advance over that region. 

There is no superposition of later till on earlier 

till; there are no differences in the degree of 

weathering or extent of erosion of till which 

could safely be ascribed to any other cause 

than accident of situation or exposure; and 

there are no "interglacial" deposits. There 

is, therefore, no basis for assuming that the 

Newington moraine marks the termination of 

an epochal advance or readvance of the ice, 

nor even of a very short readvance. It can 

only be concluded that this is a recessional 

moraine that marks a stand of the ice front 

conditioned by a balance between the rates of 

ice movement and of ablation. In accord with 

this conclusion is the evident lack of angular 

till and of materials heaped up by glacial shove, 

a fact which suggests that the ice was not moving vigorously. The regular stratification of 

the washed material also indicates that the ice 

front made no advance during the deposition 

of the moraine. On the contrary, the great 

width of parts of the moraine and the thickness 

of the "backset" beds indicate slow retreat of

the ice front during the accumulation of the 

moraine.

DISCONTINUITY OF THE MORAINE.

The major intervals between the segments 

of the Newington moraine which require explanation are of two lands. Those in Biddeford 

and Eennebunkport and in Wells and South 

Berwick are occupied by rock hills of greater 

height than the moraine. These rock hills are, 

in fact, links rather than gaps between the 

moraine segments. They obstructed the advance of the ice and were the anchors that held 

the ice and in a measure determined the josition of the Newington halt. No effort was 

made to find on these hills niorainal deposits 

marking the position of the ice front; perhaps 

careful search will disclose them. However, 

the absence of push material and the preponderance of stream-borne materials along1 other 

parts of the ice border lead to the inference that 

little niorainic drift was piled up against or on 

these hills, for they could not have been the 

sites of glaciofluvial discharge. Such materials 

as were dropped here from the melting ice v^ere 

perhaps too small in amount to make a noticeable accumulation and would otherwise be 

indistinguishable from ground moraine.

On the other hand, the Kennebunk, Mous^m, 

and Salmon Falls valleys make real breaks in 

the continuity of the moraine so wide (7 and 

8 miles) as to demand special consideration. 

A brief search in these valleys for morainal 

deposits or for evidence of either absence or 

obliteration of the moraine was without conclusive result. On account of the deep filling 

by later marine sediments there seems tc be 

little chance of establishing either the presence 

or the absence of the moraine across these 

valleys, but the manner in which the clay and 

sand plains surround exposed ends of moraine 

segments suggests strongly that the continuations of the segments lie buried under clay 

in the deeper parts of these valleys, just as 

the Biddeford and Saco segments are partly 

buried in the Saco Valley.

AGE OF THE MORAINE.

The age of the Newington moraine can not 

be decisively stated until the general problems 

of Pleistocene correlation in northern New England have been settled. It is established that
NEWINGTON MOEAINE, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND MASSACHUSETTS. 29

the Newington moraine is the youngest strictly 

glacial deposit in the immediate vicinity of the 

coast of New Hampshire and southwestern 

Maine. The only younger deposits are the later 

beds of marine clay ("Leda") and sand which 

overlie parts of the Newington moraine, and, as 

has been indicated, these are sea-laid outwash 

materials of a somewhat later stage during 

which the ice front stood not far back from the 

Newington moraine. Clapp's statement 1 that 

there is a till formation younger than and overlying marine ("Leda") clays finds no support 

in any exposed sections of the clay and its 

associated deposits which the authors have 

been able to find. But it is not merely for 

that reason that Clapp's conclusion is held to 

be inapplicable to the coastal region here considered. The critical fact is that the surface 

of the clay deposit is not glaciated but is a plain 

of deposition which, except for slight or moderate trenching by stream erosion, has been entirely unaltered since its formation. It is not 

denied that Pleistocene marine clays older than 

the Newington substage may have been covered by till, but if such clays are present in 

this region they are not to be seen because they 

are buried. It is also granted that elsewhere 

marine clays equivalent to the Newington or 

later substages may have been glaciated but 

not that such relations have yet been established.

It seems reasonable and safe to assume that 

when ice of the Wisconsin stage occupied Long

1 Clapp, F. G., Complexity of the glacial period in northeastern NewEngland: Geol. Soc. America Bull., vol. 18, pp. 505-556,1907.

Island, Marthas Vineyard, Nantucket, and the 

Cape Cod Peninsula 2 there must have been ice 

over the coastal counties of New Hampshire 

and southwestern Maine. Therefore, it must 

be concluded that the Newington moraine is of 

Wisconsin age, probably late Wisconsin, and, 

as a corollary, that so also is the marine 

("Leda") clay of that region.

SUMMARY.

A recessional moraine consisting of several separate segments disposed along a sinuous course lies near the Atlantic coast and has been traced through 60 miles from 

Saco, Maine, to Newbury, Mass. It is for the most part 

about or less than 100 feet above sea level but rises to 180 

feet in Biddeford, Maine, 150 feet in Dover, N. H.,and 

Newburyport, Mass., and is between 200 and 250 feet above 

the sea in Wells and South Berwick, Maine. Although not 

more than 40 to 100 feet higher than surrounding Pleistocene formations, nevertheless it is topographically prominent because it is in a region o.f slight relief. The moraine 

rests upon and is surrounded by a floor of ice-smoothed 

rock and of till. The region was submerged during the 

building of the moraine, and the ice front stood in the sea. 

The moraine is the result of the accumulation of glaciofluvial detritus discharged directly into the sea; consequently in some places it is built up as broad, flat, deltalike plains of sand and gravel. Clay ("Leda clay") was 

continuously deposited in the sea, both while the moraine 

was accumulating and after the ice retreated from the moraine, so that the younger clay beds in some places overlie 

the moraine. This clay is the fine glacial outwash. The 

moraine and the marine clay probably belong to a late 

Wisconsin substage of the Pleistocene epoch.

2 T he correlations of moraines in these regions with the early Wisconsin 

moraine of New Jersey is accepted. See Fuller, M. L., The geology of 

Long Island, N. Y.: U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 82, table opposite 

p. 220,1914.

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