SCIENTIFIC SURVEY. 3g.j' 



That icebergs could not have materially denuded and regularly 

 scratched the east and west sides of those hills— and especially 

 those standing alone ; for they would have been pushed with the 

 current like any other floating body, around those hills, instead of 

 over their steep sides. 



That, the fact of modern icebergs being often driven out of their 

 usual course by getting into counter currents, as in the case of the 

 one which during the past summer grounded oft' the harbor of St. 

 John, Newfoundland— a novelty the inhabitants had not seen be- 

 fore—in the boulder period, according to their supposed infinite 

 abundance, must have been of very common occurrence; but no- 

 where do we see diagonal markings on our ledges at all adequate 

 to the supposition that they were thus made by the irregular course 

 of icebergs. In fact, secondary scratches are not found in the 

 Penobscot bay, so far as I am aware of, nor any irregukir markings 

 on the rocks that could be interpreted as the result of the ground- 

 ing and vibratory motions of icebergs 



That, the enormous quantity of boulder materials does not favor 

 the iceberg theory. 



That, icebergs could not have denuded the surface rocks and 

 originated the striae, because in the direction north whence the 

 agent can)e, the base of the highlands of Maine over which it must 

 have crossed, is not less than a thousand feet above the sea. 



That, these peculiarities of the boulder phenomena could not 

 have been performed through the agency of diluvial waves from 

 the extreme north when the country stood at or near its present 

 level above the sea : for we find the islands off the coast twelve 

 and fifteen miles, with nearly five hundred feet of water north of 

 them over the river and ocean silt and submerged boulder mate- 

 rials, denuded and scratched precisely as those within the bay. 

 The whole force of the ocean would have opposed such currents. 

 * That, if it be presumed these islands were then a part of those 

 above as " main land," and the country consequently higher, the 

 locality would have been very much colder than at present. 



That, the theory of diluvial waves would involve a heterogeneous 

 mixture of boulder materials altogether different from the common 

 deposits — materials of granite, hornblende, trap, slates, &c., would 

 lie scattered alike over formations more or less unlike them. 



That, Polar floods, if any ever occurred, could never physically 

 speaking, have been projected so far from the localities of their 

 origin, as the southern part of Maine. 



