3 o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



edged, however, his own inability to account for their presence, but 



ingenuously claimed that 



Ignorance is preferable to error. It may, therefore, be asked why may not 

 these rocks have been created where they are now found, or, again, why may 

 they not have been thrown up by earthquakes or volcanoes? 



Groping though this writer may have been, it is questionable if his 

 ignorance was not preferable to the kind of knowledge manifested by 

 a writer in the American Journal of Science two years previously, who 

 had accounted for the drift on the supposition that the earth's revolu- 

 tion, amounting to 1,500 feet a second, was suddenly checked. This, 

 he thought, would result in the whole mass of the surface water rush- 

 ing forward with inconceivable velocity until overcome by opposing 

 obstacles or exhausted by continual friction and the counterbalancing 

 power of gravitation. The Pacific Ocean would thus rush over the 

 Andes and the Alleghenies into the Atlantic, which would, in the mean- 

 time, be sweeping over Europe, Asia and Africa. 



A few hours would cover the entire surface of the earth, excepting, perhaps, 

 the vicinity of the poles, with one rushing torrent in which the fragments of 

 disintegrated rocks, earth, and sand would be carried along with the wreck of 

 animal and vegetable life in one all but liquid mass. 



The first geological survey of an entire state carried through at 

 public expense was that of Massachusetts, authorized by legislative 

 enactment in 1830. Dr. Edward Hitchcock, then professor of chem- 

 istry and natural history in Amherst College, was selected to carry out 

 the work. The report presented early in 1832 was, therefore, a docu- 

 ment of unusual importance and, to a certain extent, epoch-making. 

 Much that is of interest is to be found within its pages, but we must 

 limit ourselves to that relating purely to the distribution of the numer- 

 ous erratics for which the state is noted. 



It is but natural that this drift should have been attributed to the 

 Noachian deluge, when one considers that Hitchcock's training was 

 that of a clergyman. Speaking of that about Cape Ann, he wrote: 



It can not fail to impress every reasoning mind with the conviction that 

 a deluge of tremendous power must have swept over this cape. Nothing but 

 a substratum of syenite could have stood before its devastating energy. 



This observation is of importance, since here, for the first time, 

 Hitchcock put himself on record in a line of investigation in which 

 he became more widely known than in any other, with the possible 

 exception of that relating to the fossil footprints of the Connecticut 

 Valley. 



In 1836 there was established a state geological survey of Maine, 

 with C. T. Jackson, of Boston, at its head. Jackson's views on the 

 glacial deposits, as expressed in the annual reports, were perhaps not 

 more crude than those of the average geologist of his day. The ' horse- 

 backs ' (ridges of glacial gravel) were regarded by him as of diluvial 



