Mr Baldwin on an extraordinary Avalanche. 309 



have shaken the everlasting hills. This bank rises very pre- 

 cipitously and forms the base of another peak, which towers 

 to a great height. At this place we judged the width of the 

 desolation to be twenty-five or thirty rods. As the frightful 

 moving mass now struck against an immoveable barrier, and 

 its line of direction must be changed before it could follow 

 the course of the stream, we should expect a greater accumu- 

 lation of water, &c. at this place, than at any other ; and just 

 below the point where this wreck of the mountain tumbled in- 

 to Mill Brook, I should not think it exaggeration to say, that 

 a perpendicular, raised from the bed of the stream as it now 

 runs, to a line drawn across the channel, and connecting points 

 on either side where logs, sticks, &c. lie in such a manner, as 

 to show that they must have been washed there by the cur- 

 rent, would equal one hundred feet in length. It is certainly 

 surprising, how, even on a mountain as precipitous as this — 

 such a mass starting with a width of only four rods, could ac- 

 quire sufficient momentum to carry before it an entire forest, 

 and rocks of an enormous size : but gravity created that re^ 

 sistless power, which could so many times change its direction 

 and urge it down the stream, in defiance of all the obstacles 

 that opposed its progress, and where the elevation was con- 

 stantly lessening. The principal and immediate agent was 

 water, otherwise the mass would not have proceeded farther 

 than where it struck Mill Brook — for it is easy to see that a 

 mass composed merely of trees, and rocks, and sand, however 

 enormous its bulk or tremendous its momentum, could not 

 have gone much farther than the first two hundred rods. 

 But how could the water accumulate on the sides of that pre- 

 cipitous mountain to the depth of thirty feet ? This question 

 arose as I stood gazing in astonishment, and I was strongly 

 inclined to pronounce it impossible, notwithstanding facts 

 which undeniably proved the contrary, that were staring me 

 in the face. But it will not appear incredible when we consi- 

 der that the timber above Mill Brook was principally hemlock 

 and spruce, the boughs of which would be extremely well cal- 

 culated to produce an obstruction of the flood. A dam might 

 easily be formed of the logs, boughs, rocks and earth, which 

 composed this mighty moving mass, and the upturning of 



