Facts relating to Diluvial Action, 27 



this subject, especially as I find that Sir James Hall, many 

 years since, described traces of diluvial action in Scotland, and 

 Mr David Thomas of Cayuga, has made similar observations 

 in the western part of this state, as appears in vol. xvii. p. 408. of 

 your Journal. I have examined this part of the State with consi- 

 derable care, and have found that in more than fifty different places 

 where I have seen the solid strata, the grooves and furrows ap- 

 pear from an inch to one-fourth of an inch deep, and from one- 

 fourth of an inch, to three and four inches wide ; and in some 

 cases they run due north, and in every direction from north to 

 twenty-five degrees south of east. I have found them also in 

 the bottoms of cellars, of excavations made in digging wells, and 

 where the earth has been removed by making roads, and in 

 many instances where I have uncovered the solid rock for the 

 purpose of observing the efi^ects of the diluvial action. I have 

 paid some attention to this subject while travelling in the East- 

 ern States, and I could find none of the furrows *, but the 

 solid strata appears to be worn very smooth by attrition, by the 

 motion of some bodies smaller and less solid than those v/hich 

 have produced the distinct traces, in this part of the state of 

 New York. 



It may be proper to remark first, that Sullivan County is 

 bounded south and west by the Delaware River ; north by 

 Delaware and Ulster Counties, and east by Orange ; that the 

 county Res on the easterly part of the Alleghany range of 

 mountains, and that the mean altitude of the county is on a 

 level with the high lands below Newburgh, — about 1500 feet 

 above the tide water ; that this level is continued westei-ly 

 through Sullivan County and the State of Pennsylvania, from 

 the Shongham Mountains to the Susquehannah River ; that a 

 space of about fifty miles wide of this level lies continuously, in 

 the Alleghany range, until you come to mountains of a greater 

 height, on the west side of the Susquehannah ; that the depth 

 of the earth above the solid rock, gradually and regularly in- 

 creases from Shongham Mountain to the Susquehannah ; that 

 the average depth of earth in Sullivan County, is not more than 

 twenty-five feet, nor more than thirty -five through the State of 

 Pennsylvania : that the range of the Kattskill Mountain, bounds 



* The author will find notices of such appearances in Massachusetts, by 

 iMr Appleton, vol. xi. p. 100 of Silliman's Journal. 



