Book Description

Excerpt from The Geological History of the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts: A Popular Account of Its Rocks and Origin The purpose of this little book is to present, in popular form, the salient points in the geological history of the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts. The beautiful valley and its charming boundary hills may in truth be said to be a geologist's paradise. In regard to variety of geological phenomena, few districts of equal size in North America surpass it. To most of its residents the marvelous story of the Connecticut Valley and adjacent hills as recorded in nature's book of the rocks is unknown. Beginning with the oldest decipherable records and leading up to the present time, it is my pleasure, in the following pages, to explain to the layman the principal known events in the wonderful geological history of the Connecticut Valley, including the origin of the valley as we see it today. The use of technical and unusual terms has been reduced to a minimum compatible with a reasonable understanding of the subject. Each of the few technical terms is explained where first used in the text. Since so many of the great principles of earth science (geology) are wonderfully illustrated in the Connecticut Valley and the adjacent highlands, it is my hope that this book may furnish the basis and inspiration to many people of the region for understanding and interpreting not only the principal records of the rocks, but also the important processes and laws of the science of geology illustrated by these records. To aid in the accomplishment of this purpose, simplified, largely nontechnical, scientific discussions are entered into. In order to make the conclusions more impressive and realistic actual easily accessible localities, carefully selected out of my field experience, are cited to illustrate each stage in the tremendously long history of the region. I am not satisfied to say to the reader, for example, long ages ago, according to geologists, the sea spread over central western Massachusetts. My purpose is to be much more precise than that, and to give the reader at least some of the geological reasoning upon which such conclusions are based. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.