80 Facts relatitig to Diluvial Action. 



Alleghany, says, " that all the eastern slope of the Alleghany is 

 capped or protected by the millstone grit ;" but what he called 

 the millstone grit, I call the conglomerate or puddingstone ; 

 both are formed in part of quartz, but in the true millstone grit, 

 the fine parts are formed by abrasion of the quartz only, while 

 common sand mixed with globular pieces of quartz, forms what 

 he calls the millstone grit of the Alleghany range. 



I have never been able to find any grooves or furrows on 

 the west side of the hills and ridges in the county ; nothing 

 appears but the traces and breaches where the rocks have been 

 torn up by some violent agent. It very rarely happens that any 

 traces can be found in the red argillaceous sandstone ; it is not 

 sufficiently wide to sustain the force of heavy bodies moving in 

 contact with it ; although, in some instances, the grooves appear 

 for fifteen or twenty feet, and then the strata are rough and 

 broken, but the traces are mostly on the solid puddingstone, 

 and the common grey sandstone, which remained solid and un- 

 broken at the Deluge. In those cases where the old red sand- 

 stone appears, if the slope or side of the hill faces the north, 

 I have seen three or four instances in which the furrows run 

 in that direction for half a mile, and on meeting a ridge of 

 rocks in the low grounds, the furrows turned due east, and, af- 

 ter passing the obstruction, again turned north-east, or east. 

 Not a mile from the same place, on descending from the same 

 high ground, the furrows run east, tallying with the face of the 

 hill. On the high lands west of the Shonghams, and where 

 there could be no obstruction for seventy or eighty miles, I ex- 

 amined ten or twelve different places in which the furrows were 

 deep and distinct, and found them to run from ten to twelve 

 degrees north of east ; and they continued in the same direction 

 for a considerable distance down the mountain ; at no great dis- 

 tance to the south, the furrows tended twenty-five degrees 

 south of east, leading to a low opening in the Shougham 

 Mountain, through which the currents of water naturally run. 

 I have rarely examined the strata below the decomposing ef- 

 fects of frost, without discovering distinct traces of diluvial ac- 

 tion. Near the banks of streams, I hardly ever found any 

 such marks, but the solid strata appeared broken and very 

 little altered by attrition. In one place, where the earth was 



