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===Colonization, agricultural transformation, and industrialization===
===Colonization, agricultural transformation, and industrialization===
[[European]]s began settling the river valleys around the Metacomet Ridge in the mid-1600s. Forests were cut down and burned to make room for agriculture, resulting in the near complete denuding of the once continguous forests of southern New England by the 1800s. The Metacomet Ridge, while not suitable for planting crops, was also widely harvested as a result of the expanding [[charcoal]] industry that boomed before the mining of [[coal]] the the mid-Appalachian region replaced it as a source of fuel. In other cases, ridgeop forests burned when lower elevation land was set afire, and some uplands were used for pasturing.<ref name="Cronin"/><ref name="EF"/> Traprock was harvested from [[talus]] slopes of the ridge to build house foundations;<ref name="EF"/> copper ore was discovered at the base of Peak Mountain in northern Connecticut and was mined by prisoners incarcerated at Old Newgate Prison located there.<ref>http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2127&q=302258 Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism] Cited Dec. 22, 2007</ref>
[[European]]s began settling the river valleys around the Metacomet Ridge in the mid-1600s. Forests were cut down and burned to make room for agriculture, resulting in the near complete denuding of the once continguous forests of southern New England by the 1800s. The Metacomet Ridge, while not suitable for planting crops, was also widely harvested of timber as a result of the expanding [[charcoal]] industry that boomed before the mining of [[coal]] the the mid-Appalachian region replaced it as a source of fuel. In other cases, ridgeop forests burned when lower elevation land was set afire, and some uplands were used for pasturing.<ref name="Cronin"/><ref name="EF"/> Traprock was harvested from [[talus]] slopes of the ridge to build house foundations;<ref name="EF"/> copper ore was discovered at the base of Peak Mountain in northern Connecticut and was mined by prisoners incarcerated at Old Newgate Prison located there.<ref>http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2127&q=302258 Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism] Cited Dec. 22, 2007</ref>


In the 1800s, with the advent of industrialization, rieverways beneath the ridge were dammed to provide power while urban and town centers expanded with a swelling labor force. Logging to provide additional fuel for mills resulted in the further denuding to the ridges. Traprock was quarried from the Metacomet Ridge for paving stone and for architectural [[brownstone]] which was used locally or sold and shipped via rail, barge, and boat.<ref name="EF"/><ref name="Cronin"/>
In the 1800s, with the advent of industrialization, riverways beneath the ridge were dammed to provide power while urban and town centers expanded with a swelling labor force. Logging to provide additional fuel for mills resulted in the further denuding to the ridges. Traprock was quarried from the Metacomet Ridge for paving stone and for architectural [[brownstone]] which was used locally or sold and shipped via rail, barge, and boat.<ref name="EF"/><ref name="Cronin"/><ref>Bass, Sharon. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7DF1F3DF935A15750C0A96F948260 "The View From: Branford; Trolley Rides in the Cause of Open Space."] The New York Times, March 26, 1989. </ref>


===The era of transcendentalism===
===The era of transcendentalism===

Revision as of 22:23, 24 December 2007

Template:Geobox The Metacomet Ridge is a series of narrow and steep fault-block mountain ridges with frequent prominent summits located in south-central New England. They are known for their high cliffs, scenic vistas, microclimate ecosystems, and communities of plants considered rare or endangered. These mountains extend from Long Island Sound in south-central Connecticut, through the Connecticut River Valley region of Massachusetts, to the Vermont border, a distance of Template:Dist mile km. Younger and geologically distinct from the nearby Appalachian Mountains and surrounding uplands, these mountains are composed of columnar volcanic basalt (also known as traprock) and sedimentary rock in faulted and tilted layers many hundreds of feet thick. In most (but not all cases) the basalt layers are dominant, prevalent, and exposed. Although not very high in elevation, (1,200 feet/366 m) above sea level at their highest, these mountains rise dramatically from much lower valley elevations, making them very prominent landscape features.[1][2]

Naming the ridge

Metacom by Paul Revere

There is no universal consensus on the name for this mountain range. The Metacomet Ridge is described by some sources as a traprock ridge beginning on the Holyoke Range in Belchertown, Massachusetts, and ending at the Hanging Hills in Meriden, Connecticut.[2] A recent report conducted for the National Park Service extends that definition to include the traprock ridgeline all the way from Greenfield, Massachusetts to Long Island Sound.[1] Contrarily, the Sierra Club has referred to the entire range in Connecticut as (capitalized) "The Traprock Ridge."[3] Geologically and visually, the traprock ridgeline exists as one continuous landscape feature from Belchertown, Massachusetts to Branford, Connecticut at Long Island Sound, Template:Dist mile km, broken only by the river gorges of the Farmington River in northern Connecticut and the Westfield and Connecticut Rivers in Massachusetts.[1][4] The United States Board on Geographic Names does not recognize Metacomet Ridge, Traprock Ridge or any other name, although several smaller sub-ranges are identified (Hanging Hills, Holyoke Range, and Mount Tom Range).[5] Geologists usually refer to the overall range generically as "the traprock ridge" or "the traprock mountains" or refer to it with regard to its prehistoric geologic significance in technical terms. Further complicating the matter is the fact that traprock only accounts for the highest surface layers of rock strata on the southern three-fourths of the range; an underlying geology of related sedimentary rock is also a part of the structure of the ridge; in north central Massachusetts it becomes the dominant strata and extends the range geologically from the Holyoke Range another Template:Dist mile km, to nearly the Vermont border.[6][7] This article describes the entire Metacomet Ridge and all geologic extensions of it.

Easier to explain is the name "Metacomet", borrowed from the 17th century sachem of the Wampanoag Tribe of southern New England who led his people during King Philip's War.[8]

Geography

The Farmington River cuts the Metacomet Ridge in Simsbury, Connecticut

Beginning at Long Island Sound, the Metacomet Ridge commences as two parallel ridges with related sub-rdiges and outcrops in between (most notably the high butte-like cliff of East Rock). The western ridgeline of the Metacomet Ridge begins in New Haven, Connecticut as West Rock Ridge and continues as Sanford Mountain and Sleeping Giant, extending north Template:Dist mile km, before petering out into a series of low outcrops.

To the east, beginning on the rocky prominance of Beacon Hill 130 feet (40 m), in Branford, Connecticut, overlooking the East Haven River estuary, the Metacomet Ridge continues north 70 miles to the end of the Holyoke Range in Belchertown, Massachusetts as a traprock ridge broken only by three river gorges and by excavations made by human beings. Several smaller parallel ridges flank it here and there (most notably the Barn Door Hills in northern Connecticut).

North of the Holyoke Range, the apparent rideline of the Metacomet Ridge is broken where the once dominant traprock strata takes a hiatus. Underlying sedementary layers remain but lack the same profile. Between the Hoyoke Range and the Pocumtuck Ridge, a Template:Dist mile km stretch, the Metacomet Ridge exists only as a series of mostly non-descript rises set among flat plains of sedimentary bedrock. Mount Warner, 512 feet (156 m), in Hadley, Massachusetts the only significant peak in the area, is a geologically unrelated landform that extends west into the sedimentary strata from the metamorphic rock .

View from Mount Tom, Massachusetts, highest traprock peak of the Metacomet Ridge

strata to the east. The Metacomet Ridge picks up elevation again with the Pocumtuck Ridge, beginning on Sugarloaf Mountain and the parallel massif of Mount Toby, 1,269 feet (387 m), the high point of the Metacomet Ridge geography. Both Sugarloaf Mountain and Mount Toby are composed of erosion-resistant sedimentary rock. North of Mount Sugarloaf, the Pocumtuck Ridge continues as alternating sedimentary and traprock dominated strata to Greenfield, Massachusetts. From Greenfield north to just Template:Dist mile km short of the Vermont/ New Hampshire/ Massachusetts tri-border, the geology of the Metacomet Ridge peters out as a series of indescript hills and low, wooded mountain peaks composed of sedimentary rock with dwindling traprock outcrops.[1][4][7][6][9]

In Connecticut, the high point of the Metacomet Ridge is West Peak of the Hanging Hills at 1,024 feet (312 m); in Massachusetts, the highest traprock peak is Mount Tom, 1202 feet (363 m), although Mount Toby, made of sedimentary rock, is higher. Visually, the Metacomet Ridge is narrowest at Provin Mountain and East Mountain in Massachusetts where it is less than Template:Dist mile km wide; it is widest at Totoket Mountain, over Template:Dist mile km. However, low parallel hills and related strata along much of the range often make the actual geologic breadth of the Metacomet Ridge much wider than the more noticeable ridgeline crests. [4]

Significant river drainages of the Metacomet Ridge include the Connecticut River and tributaries (Falls River, Deerfield River, Westfield River, Farmington River, Coginchaug River); and, in southern Connecticut, the Quinnipiac River.

The Metacomet Ridge is surrounded by rural wooded, agricultural, and suburban landscapes, and is no more than Template:Dist mile km from a number of urban hubs such as New Haven, Meridin, New Britain, Hartford, and Springfield. Smaller hubs include Greenfield, Northampton, Amherst, Farmington, and Wallingford

Geology

Faulted and tilted layer of traprock strata visible from left to right. The Hanging Hills of Meriden, Connecticut.
Traprock layer above; sedimentary layer beneath. Defunct quarry, Plainville Connecticut

The Metacomet Ridge is the result of continental rifting processes that took place 200 million years ago during the Triassic and Jurassic periods. Traprock (basalt) is an extrusive volcanic rock, dark in color, but the iron within it weathers to a rusty brown when exposed to the air, lending the ledges a distinct reddish or purple-red appearance. Basalt frequently breaks into octagonal and pentagonal columns, creating a unique "postpile" appearance. Huge slopes made of fractured basalt talus are visible at the base of the many cliffs on these mountains.

The basalt of the Metacomet Ridge is the product of a series of massive lava flows hundreds of feet deep that welled up in faults created by the rifting apart of the North American continent from Eurasia and Africa. Essentially, the area now occupied by the Metacomet Ridge, a prehistoric rift valley, was a branch of (or a parallel of) the major rift to the east that become the Atlantic Ocean. Basalt lava welled up as landmasses were pulled apart. These basalt floods of lava took place over a long period of geologic time. Erosion and deposition occurring between the eruptions deposited deep layers of sediment between the lava flows, which eventually lithified into sedimentary rock. The resulting "layer cake" of basalt and sedimentary rock eventually faulted and tilted upward (see fault-block). Subsequent erosion wore away many of the weaker sedimentary layers at a faster rate than the basalt layers, leaving the abruptly tilted edges of the basalt sheets exposed, creating the distinct linear ridge and dramatic cliff faces visible today.[7]

Talus slope on Bare Mountain of the Holyoke Range, Massachusetts

The best way to imagine this is to picture a layer cake tilted slightly up with some of the frosting (the sedimentary layer) removed in between. One of the best places to view this layer-cake structure is on Mount Norwottuck of the Holyoke Range in Massachusetts. The summit of Norwottuck is made of basalt; directly beneath the summit are the Horse Caves, a deep overhang where the weaker sedimentary layer has worn away at a more rapid rate than the basalt layer above it. Mount Sugarloaf, Pocumtuck Ridge, and Mount Toby, also in Massachusetts, together present an interesting "layer cake" example. The botton layer is composed of arkose sandstone,' visible on Mount Sugarloaf. The middle layer is composed volcanic traprock, most visible on the Pocumtuck Ridge. The top layer is composed of a sedimentary conglomerate known as Mount Toby Conglomerate. Faulting and earthquakes during the period of continental rifting tilted the layers diagonally; subsequent erosion and glacial activity exposed the tilted layers of sandstone, basalt, and conglomerate visible today as three distinct mountain masses. Although Mount Toby and Mount Sugarloaf are not composed of traprock, they are part of the Metacomet Ridge by virtue of their origin via the same rifting and uplift processes.[6]

Of all the subranges that make up the Metacomet Ridge, West Rock, in New Haven, Connecticut, bears special mention because it was not formed by the volcanic flooding that created most of the traprock ridges. Rather, it is the remains of an enormous volcanic dike through which the basalt lava floods found access to the surface.[7]

Ecosystem

Prickly Pear Cactus, an endangered species of the Metacomet Ridge in Connecticut

The Metacomet Ridge hosts a combination of microclimates unusual to the region. Dry, hot upper ridges support oak savannas, often dominated by chestnut oak and a variety of understory grasses and ferns. Eastern red cedar, a dry-loving species, clings to the barren edges of cliffs. Backslope plant communities tend to be similar to the adjacent upland plateaus and nearby Appalachians, containing species common to the northern hardwood and oak-hickory forest ecosystem types.

File:Stamp-ctc-1990s-recovering-species.png
The Peregrine Falcon on a U.S. postage stamp

Eastern hemlock crowds narrow ravines, blocking sunlight and creating damp, cooler growing conditions with associated cooler climate plant species. Talus slopes are especially rich in nutrients and support a number of calcium-loving plants uncommon in the region. Miles of high cliffs make ideal raptor habitat, and the traprock mountians are a seasonal raptor migration corridor. Because the topography of these mountains generate such varied terrain, they are the home of several plant and animal species that are globally or state-listed as rare—such as the prickly pear cactus, peregrine falcon, northern copperhead, basil mountain mint and devil's bit lily. A good, thorough study of the Metacomet Ridge environment and its species can be found within a report by Elizabeth Farnsworth commissioned by the National Park Service. [1]

The Metacomet Ridge is also an important aquifer.[1] It provides municipalities and towns with public drinking water; noteworthy reservoirs are located on Talcott Mountain, Totoket Mountain, Saltonstall Mountain, Bradley Mountain, Ragged Mountain, and the Hanging Hills in Connecticut. Reservoirs that supply metropolitan Springfield, Massachusetts are located on Provin Mountain and East Mountain.[10][11]


History

Pre-colonial period

Native Americans occupied the river valleys surounding the Metacomt Ridge for at least 10,000 years. Major tribal groups active in the area included the Niantic, Pequot, and Mohegan. Traprock was used to make tools and arroheads. Natives hunted game, gathered plants and fruits, and fished in local bodies of water on and around the Metacomet Ridge. Tracts of woodland in the river bottoms surrounding the ridges were sometimes burned to facilitate the cultivation of crops such as corn, squash, tobacco, and beans.[12][1] Myths were invented to explain natural features of the ridgeline and surrounding geography. For instance, the gigantic spirit Hobbomock was credited with diverting the course of the Connecticut River where it suddenly swings east in Middletown, Connecticut after several hundred miles of running due south. Hobbomuck is also credited with slaying a giant human-eating beaver who lived in a great lake that supposedly existed in the Connecticut River Valley of Masschusetts. According to legend, the corpse of the beaver remains visible as the Pocumtuck Ridge portion of the Metacomet Ridge. Later, after Hobbomuck diverted the course of the Connecticut River, he was punised to sleep forever as the prominant man-like form of the Sleeping Giant, part of the Metacomet Ridge in southern Connecticut. Although fanciful, there seems to be an element of scientific truth in some of these tails. For instance, the great lake that the giant beaver inhabited may very well have been the post-glacial Lake Hitchcock, extant 10,000 years ago, and the giant beaver may have been an actual species of bear-sized beaver also extant at that time. Many features of the Metacomet Ridge still bear names with Native American origins: Besek, Pistapaug, Norwottuck, Hockanum, Nonotuck, Pocumtuck, and others.[13][14][15][16] [17]

Colonization, agricultural transformation, and industrialization

Europeans began settling the river valleys around the Metacomet Ridge in the mid-1600s. Forests were cut down and burned to make room for agriculture, resulting in the near complete denuding of the once continguous forests of southern New England by the 1800s. The Metacomet Ridge, while not suitable for planting crops, was also widely harvested of timber as a result of the expanding charcoal industry that boomed before the mining of coal the the mid-Appalachian region replaced it as a source of fuel. In other cases, ridgeop forests burned when lower elevation land was set afire, and some uplands were used for pasturing.[12][1] Traprock was harvested from talus slopes of the ridge to build house foundations;[1] copper ore was discovered at the base of Peak Mountain in northern Connecticut and was mined by prisoners incarcerated at Old Newgate Prison located there.[18]

In the 1800s, with the advent of industrialization, riverways beneath the ridge were dammed to provide power while urban and town centers expanded with a swelling labor force. Logging to provide additional fuel for mills resulted in the further denuding to the ridges. Traprock was quarried from the Metacomet Ridge for paving stone and for architectural brownstone which was used locally or sold and shipped via rail, barge, and boat.[1][12][19]

The era of transcendentalism

Increased urbanization and industrialization in Europe and North America resulted in an opposing aesthetic movement characterized in the New England by the paintings of the Hudson River School of American landscape painters such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, the work of landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmstead, and the writings of philosophers like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. This philisophical, artistic, and environmental movement transformed many areas of the Metacomet Ridge (as well as other places in New England) from a commercial resource to a recreational resource.[1] Hotels, parks, and summer estates were built on the mountains from the mid-1880s to the early 1900s. Notable structures included summit hotels and inns on Mount Holyoke, Mount Tom, Sugarloaf Mountain, and Mount Nonotuck.[20][21] Parks and parks structures such as Poet's Seat in Greenfield, Massachusetts]] and Hubbard Park, (designed with the help of Frederick Law Olmstead) of the Hanging Hills of Meriden, Connecticut were designed as respites from the urban areas they closely abbutted.[22][23] The notable estates Hill-Stead, Heublein Tower, and others were built as summer mountain homes by local industrialists and commercial investors.[24] [25]Although public attention gradually shifted to more remote and less developed recreational destinations with the advent of modern transportation and the expansion of colonization west across North America, early recreational interest in the Metacomet Ridge still supports, through a physical and cultural historic legacy, modern conservation efforts. Estates became museums; old hotels and the lands they occupied, frequently subject to damaging fires, became state and municipal park land through philanthropic donation, purchase, or confiscation for unpaid taxes. Nostalgia among former guests of hotels and estate owners contributed to the aesthetic of conservation.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

The advent of the long distance trail

Interests in mountains as a place to build recreational footpaths took root in New England with organizations such as the Appalachian Mountain Club[1], the Green Mountain Club[2], and the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.[3] Following the pioneering effort of the Green Mountain Club in the creation of Vermont's Long Trail in 1918,[26] the Connecticut Forest and Park Association, spearheaded by Edgar Laing Heermance, created the 23 mile Quinnipiac Trail on the lower, western Metacomet Ridge in 1928 and soon followed it up with the 50 mile Metacomet Trail along the Metacomet Ridge in central and northern Connecticut.[27] While the focus of Appalachian Mountain Club was geared primarily toward the White Mountains of New Hampshire in its early years, as club membership broadened, so did interest in the areas that club members came from.[28][29] In the late 1950's, the Metacomet-Monadnock Traill was laid out by the Berkshire Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club under leadership of Professor Walter M. Banfield of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.[30] Trailbuilding had a pro-active effect on the conservation of landscape features and and ecosystems along the trail by thrusting portions of the Metacomet Ridge into the public consciousness. Development and quarrying on the Metacomet Ridge are hotly contested ventures that have resulted in public conservation land acquisition through collective purchasing and fundraising, active solicitation of land donations, protective and restrictive legislation and agreements, and, in a few cases, land taking by imanent domain.[1][21][31]

Suburbanization and commuter culture

Although the Metacomet ridge has abutted significant urban areas for nearly two hundred years, because of its rugged, steep, and rocky terrain, the ridge was long considered an undesirable place to build a home except for those wealthy enough to aford such a luxury. However, suburbanization through urban exodus and automobile culture, and modern construction techniques and equipment have created a demand for homes on and abutting the once undeveloped landscape of the Metacomet Ridge and the surrounding exurban communities.[1] As of 2007, the metropolitan areas abutting the range--New Haven, Meriden, New Britain, Hartford, Springfield and Greenfield--had a combined population of more than 2.5 million people.[32] Populations in exurban towns around the range in Connecticut have increased 7.6 percent from the mid-1990's to 2000, and building permits increased 26 percent in the same period. Considered an attractive place to build homes because of its nearness to urban centers and highways and its views, the Metacomet Ridge has become a target for both developers and advocates of land conservation. Quarrying, supported by the increawed need for stone in local construction projects, is especially damaging to the ecosystem, public accessibility, and visual landscape of the ridge.[1] In response to public interest in the Metacomet Ridge and surrounding landscapes, at least 20 local non-profit conservation organizations are involved in conservation efforts on and around the ridge and surroudning landscape. Most of these organizations came into being between 1970 and 2000, and nearly all of them have evidenced a marked increase in conservation activity since 1990.[33] A number of international and national organizations have also become interested in the Metacomet Ridge, for instance The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land.[34][35]

Recreation

East Rock of New Haven, Connecticut

Steepness, fine views, and proximity to urban areas make the Metacomet Ridge a popular hiking destination. The ridge is traversed by more than Template:Dist mile km of long distance and shorter hiking trails. Noteworthy trails in Connecticut include the Template:Dist mile km Metacomet Trail, the Template:Dist mile km Mattabesett Trail, the Template:Dist mile km Quinnipiac Trail, and the Template:Dist mile km Regicides Trail. Noteworthy trails in massachusetts include the Template:Dist mile km Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, the Template:Dist mile km Robert Frost Trail (Massachusetts), and the Template:Dist mile km Pocumtuck Ridge Trail. Site-specific activities include rock climbing, bouldering, fishing, hunting, swimming, backcountry skiing, cross-country skiing, boating, bicycling, and mountain biking. Snowshoeing is common in the winter. The ridge hosts several state parks and reservations; some of these have seasonal automobile roads which are also used for bicycling and cross country skiing. Camping and campfires are discouraged on most of the Metacomet Ridge, especially in Connecticut.[10][11][36][37]

Conservation

Obliteration of Round Mountain by quarrying. 1989 photo; sigificantly more rock has been removed since then.

Because of its narrowness, proximity to urban areas, and fragile ecosystems, the Metacomet Ridge is most threatened by encroaching suburban sprawl. Quarry expansion is also a threat; several quarrying operations have obliterated large acreages of traprock ridgeline in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. Ridges and mountains most notably affected include Trimountain, Bradley Mountain, Totoket Mountain, Chauncey Peak, East Mountain, Pocumtuck Ridge, and the former Round Mountain of the Holyoke Range. The gigantic man-like form of the Sleeping Giant, a traprock massif visible for miles in south central Connecticut, bears quarrying scars on its head. Referred to locally as the "Giant's lobotomy", the quarrying there was halted by the efforts of local citizens and the non-profit Sleeping Giant Park Association.[1][11][4]

Recent conservation milestones include the conservation of a defunct ski area on Mount Tom[38], the purchase of the ledges and summits of Ragged Mountain through the efforts of a local rock climbing club and the Nature Conservancy,[39] and the inclusion of the ridgeline from Branford, Connecticut to Belchertown, Massachusetts in a study by the National Park Service for a new National Scenic Trail tentatively called the New England National Scenic Trail.[40]

Notable mountains, ridges, and sub-ranges

Talcott Mountain ridgeline
Traprock escarpment of Ragged Mountain, Southington Connecticut

Notable mountains and sub-ranges include the following (with location), listed south to north.

In Connecticut:

West ridgeline

East ridgeline

In Massachusetts:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Farnsworth, Elizabeth J. "Metacomet-Mattabesett Trail Natural Resource Assessment.", 2004. PDF file. Cited Nov. 20, 2007.
  2. ^ a b See SCGC brochure for mention of the name "Metacomet Ridge" in association with this mountain range
  3. ^ Sierra Club. cited Dec.13, 2007
  4. ^ a b c d DeLorme Topo 6.0. Mapping Software. DeLorme, Yarmouth, Maine Cite error: The named reference "DeLorme" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Cited Dec.13, 2007
  6. ^ a b c "Stratigraphy and Paleocology of the Deerfield Rift Basin (Triassic-Jurassic, Newark Supergroup), Massachusetts." Guidebook for Field Trips in the Connecticut Valley Region of Massachusetts and Adjacent States. vol. 2, 84th annual meeting, New England Intergollegiate Geological Conference, The Five Colleges. Amherst, Massachusetts. October 9-10-11, 1992: 488-535. Cited from the web, Dec. 1, 2007.
  7. ^ a b c d Raymo, Chet and Maureen E. Written in Stone: A Geologic History of the Northeastern United States. Globe Pequot, Chester, Connecticut, 1989.
  8. ^ The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Guide. 9th Edition. The Appalachian Mountain Club. Amherst, Massachusetts, 1999
  9. ^ Zen, E-an, Goldsmith, Richard, Ratcliffe, N.M., Robinson, Peter, Stanley, R.S., Hatch, N.L., Shride, A.F., Weed, E.G.A., and Wones, D.R. Bedrock Geologic Map of Massachusetts USGS. 1983
  10. ^ a b The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Guide. 9th Edition. The Appalachian Mountain Club. Amherst, Massachusetts, 1999
  11. ^ a b c Connecticut Walk Book: A Trail Guide to the Connecticut Outdoors. 17th Edition. The Connecticut Forest and Park Association. Rockfall, Connecticut. Undated.
  12. ^ a b c Cronin, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. 2003, Hill and Wang, New York.
  13. ^ Field, P., 1870-79, Stories, anecdotes, and legends, collected and written down by Deacon Phinehas Field: In History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA, v. 1, p. 59.
  14. ^ Connecticut River Homepage. Umass.edu.Cited Dec. 15, 2007
  15. ^ http://www.sgpa.org/
  16. ^ Sleeping Giant Park Association. Cited Dec. 14, 2007
  17. ^ Connecticut Walk Book: A Trail Guide to the Connecticut Outdoors. 17th Edition. The Connecticut Forest and Park Association. Rockfall, Connecticut. Undated.
  18. ^ http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2127&q=302258 Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism] Cited Dec. 22, 2007
  19. ^ Bass, Sharon. "The View From: Branford; Trolley Rides in the Cause of Open Space." The New York Times, March 26, 1989.
  20. ^ Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Cited Dec. 23, 2007.
  21. ^ a b Holyoke Range Historical Timeline Cited November 20, 2007.
  22. ^ City of Greenfield. Cited Dec. 23, 2007
  23. ^ Hubbard Park PDF Brochure. South Central Regional Council of Governments. Cited Dec. 13, 2007.
  24. ^ Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Cited Dec. 21, 2007
  25. ^ Hill-Stead Museum. Cited Dec. 19, 2007.
  26. ^ http://www.greenmountainclub.org/ Green Mountain Club.] Cited Dec. 22, 2007
  27. ^ Connecticut Forest and Park Association Cited. Dec. 23, 2007
  28. ^ Waterman, Laura and Guy Waterman Forest and Crag, A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing Appalachian Mountain Club Books; 2nd edition, Nov. 1, 2003
  29. ^ Appalachian Mountain Club. Cited Dec. 23, 2007
  30. ^ The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Guide. 9th Edition. The Appalachian Mountain Club. Amherst, Massachusetts, 1999
  31. ^ http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/337_mount_tom.cfm "Mount Tom: Defining the Landscape of the Connecticut River Valley"] The Trustees of Reservations. Website cited November 28, 2007.
  32. ^ United States Census Bureau data as of 2007.
  33. ^ List of conservation organization websites from which this information is drawn is supplied in the links section.
  34. ^ "Metacomet Ridge Open Space Preserved (CT)" Trust for Public Land. Cited Dec. 23, 2007.
  35. ^ "Higby Mountain Preserve" The Nature Conservancy. Cited Dec. 24, 2007.
  36. ^ Department of Conservation and Recreation (Massachusetts). Cited Nov. 20, 2007.
  37. ^ Connecticut Dept. Environmental Protection. Forests and Parks. Cited Dec. 8, 2007
  38. ^ "Mount Tom: Defining the Landscape of the Connecticut River Valley" The Trustees of Reservations. Website cited November 28, 2007.
  39. ^ Ragged Mountain Foundation. Cited Dec. 7, 2007.
  40. ^ Monadnock, Metacoment, Mattabesett National Scenic Trail Study. Cited Nov. 4, 2007.

Maps and other literature

Associated government and municipal agencies

Associated non-profit organizations

Geology of Connecticut

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