3 o2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



carrying devastation before them like the waters from cloud-burst or 

 bursting reservoirs of to-day, but on a thousandfold larger scale. By 

 this bursting all the country on both the Canadian and Fredonian sides 

 must have been drained and left bare, exposing to view the water-worn 

 pebbles, and the whole exhibition of organic remains there formed. 

 Great masses of primitive rocks from the demolished dam, and vast 

 quantities of sand, mud and gravel were carried down the stream to 

 form the curious admixture of primitive with alluvial materials in 

 the regions below. 



A fresh contribution to the subject was rendered this same year, 

 in the publication of Amos Eaton's ' Index to the Geology of the 

 Northern States.' Eaton's views were in part, at least, a reflection of 

 those of Werner. We have to do here, however, only with that portion 

 of the work relating to the so-called alluvial class of rocks. In dis- 

 cussing this and attempting to account for the great masses of granite 

 and syenite which he found scattered throughout the Connecticut Eiver 

 region, he wrote: 



What force can have brought these masses from the western hills, across 

 a deep valley seven hundred feet lower than their present situation? Are we 

 not compelled to say that this valley was once filled up so as to make a 

 gradual descent from the Chesterfield range of granite, syenite, etc., to the top 

 of Mount Tom? Then it would be easy to conceive of their being rolled down 

 to the top of the greenstone where we now find them. 



It was not easy in all cases for the geologists of these early days to 

 distinguish between the younger and earlier drift, or between the ma- 

 terial which we now consider as glacial drift and the loosely consolidated 

 alluvial deposits of the Tertiary period. This seems particularly true 

 of Dr. H. H. Hayden, a Baltimore dentist and one-time architect, who 

 in 1820 published a volume of geological essays in which he dwelt very 

 fully upon the lowlands, or the area at present comprised within the 

 so-called Coastal Plain. After referring to the geographical limits 

 of this plain and combating the opinions of previous observers, he 

 elaborated his own theories somewhat as follows: 



Viewing the subject in all its bearings, there is no circumstance that 

 affords so strong evidence of the cause of the formation of this plane as that 

 of its having been deposited by a general current which, at some unknown 

 period, flowed impetuously across the whole continent of North America in a 

 northeast and southwest ' direction, its course being dependent upon that of 

 the general current of the Atlantic Ocean, the waters of which were assumed 

 to have risen to such a height that it overran its limits and spread desolation 

 on its ancient shores. 



In seeking the cause of this general current Hayden referred first 



to the seventh chapter of Genesis: 



For yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days 

 and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy 

 from off the face of the earth. 



He then proceeded to show the inadequacy of rainfall alone, 

 since the water being thus equally distributed over the ocean and the 



