610 Contributions to Physical Geography. 



thousands of trees with the soil adhering to their roots, would 

 greatly aid in effecting the object. And this appears to have 

 been its modtts operandi throughout the whole course. The 

 ground was desperately disputed, but whenever a check was 

 given to its progress, the foaming torrent would accumulate 

 behind, till it had gathered sufficient force to burst every bar- 

 rier — and again the huge pile proceeded thundering down the 

 mountain. The forest seems to have been prostrated with as 

 much ease as if it had been but a field of grain. The mass 

 evidently went down in the wildest confusion. The trees some- 

 times erect, or sweeping around their branchless trunks in 

 " horrid circles,"" would level tremendous blows at those upon 

 the banks of the stream — as appeared by the bark frequently 

 taken off at a great height — now their tops and roots alternate- 

 ly projecting forward, and again lying across the current were 

 shivered in an instant. They are left in considerable numbers 

 throughout the whole course, some lying upon the banks, 

 others in the channel, and wholly or in part buried in the 

 sand and rocks. But the principal part of the timber swept 

 from these twenty-five acres lies piled in a confused heap, co- 

 vering perhaps an acre of ground, and four hundred and 

 eighty rods, (one and a-half mile,) from the spot where the 

 slide commenced ! Here having already spent much of its 

 force, and the mountain growing less precipitous, it struck 

 into a cluster of firmly rooted trees and was compelled to stop. 

 At this place it presents a perpendicular wall of logs, &c. 

 across the entire channel, in some places ten or fifteen feet high. 

 The upper end of the pile is buried beneath the sand and 

 stones, and the stream now runs over the top. Perhaps those 

 very logs will be dug out in after times as fossil wood. 



Every thing in this mass bears the marks of the greatest 

 violence. Almost every tree is as completely divested of its 

 roots, branches, and bark, as could have been effected by man 

 with the proper instruments. They are pounded, and splin- 

 tered and broken into all imaginable shapes and lengths. We 

 felt ourselves amply repaid for our labour. It is well worth 

 the attention of the lovers of the marvellous, and especially 

 of every one who has never witnessed such tremendous effects 

 accomplished by the agency of water. I shall never more 



