156 Eruption of Long Lake and Mud Lake, in Vermont. 



ver, between Mud Lake and Lake Memphremagog. At Enos's 

 Mills, 5 miles below the village of Barton, and 17 below Long 

 Lake, the torrent retained so much of its impetuosity, that it 

 moved a rock, supposed to be of 100 tons in weight, a number 

 of rods from its bed. 



Some of the deposits of sand were very extensive ; and the 

 changes effected by the deposition were different in different spe- 

 cies of soil. Extensive tracts of the flats on Barton river were 

 fine meadow land ; while other tracts were sunken swamps. 

 The former, so far as they received the deposits, were left mere 

 fields of barren sand ; while the latter were converted by them 

 in a short time into the richest meadows. One swamp, to the 

 amount of two hundred acres, and several others to the amount 

 of three hundred more, were thus recovered ; while various 

 tracts of meadow, in all about one hundred acres, were perma- 

 nently ruined. 



Masses of wood were deposited, in greater or less frequency, 

 along the banks of the guUey, as well as in much larger heaps 

 in those places where the progress of the torrent was momen- 

 tarily suspended. Some of the men who witnessed it, told me 

 that tens of thousands of cords, a quantity which could not be 

 calculated, were thus left in Barton, besides a vast number 

 floated further down. Near the church in Barton , a field of 

 twenty acres was covered with deposited timber to the height 

 of twenty feet. In several places, where the torrent was power- 

 fully obstructed and suddenly narrowed, (as I was informed 

 by two of the inhabitants), the timber was piled up by the 

 force of the stream, to the height of 60 or 80 feet. Vast quan- 

 tities of it were sunk under the sand. That which lay upon 

 the surface was burned as fast as it dried, and they had been 

 burning it continually to clear the land ; yet many acres of 

 meadow still remained covered with timber ; and I also saw nu- 

 merous large heaps of it skirting the edge of either bank. The 

 kinds of timber were spruce, cedar, hemlock and hackmontak. 

 The trees were much bruised, the branches generally broken, 

 and the bark peeled off; while the trees left standing near the 

 two edges of the torrent, were principally killed. 



I was informed that deposits both of wood and sand were 

 made in this manner, on both sides of the torrenf s path, all the 



