Naturally, while prosecuting the survey of the superficial geology of Minnesota, Mr. Upham was greatly impressed by the continued existence of the innumerable lakelets that give such a charm to the scenery of that State. Every day's investigations added to the evidence that the lapse of time since the Ice age must have been comparatively brief, since, otherwise, the rains and streams would have filled these basins with sediment, and cut outlets low enough to drain them dry, for in many instances he could see such changes slowly going forward.[EF] [Footnote EF: Minnesota Geological Report for 1879, p. 73.] [Illustration: Fig. 107.--Section of kettle-hole near Pomp's Pond, Andover, Massachusetts (see text). (For general view of the situation, see Fig. 30, p. 78.)] Some years ago I myself made a careful estimate of the amount of deposition and vegetable accumulation which had taken place in a kettle-hole near Pomp's Pond, in Andover, Mass. The diameter of the depression at the rim was 276 feet. The inclination of the sides was such that the extreme depression of the apex of the inverted cone could not have been more than seventy feet; yet the accumulation of peat and sediment only amounted to a depth of seventeen feet. The total amount of material which had accumulated would be represented by a cone ninety-six feet in diameter at the base and seventeen feet at the apex, which would equal only a deposit of about five feet over the present surface of the bottom. It is easy to see that ten thousand years is a liberal allowance of time for the accumulation of five feet of sediment in the bottom of an enclosure like a kettle-hole, for upon examination it is clear that whatever insoluble material gets into a kettle-hole must remain there, since there is no possible way by which it can get out. Now five feet is sixty inches, and if this amount has been six thousand years in accumulating, that would represent a rate of an inch in one hundred years, while, if it has been twelve thousand years in accumulation, the rate will be only one two-hundredth of an inch per year, a film so small as to be almost inappreciable. If we may judge from appearance, the result would not be much different in the case of the tens of thousands of kettle-holes and lakelets which dot the surface of the glaciated region.