SCIENTIFIC SURVEY. 3(}5 



bank, 300 feet above the river, in order to reach the phatcau 

 above — then commenced the "carry" on the western bank across 

 the plain, to the dam, where the boats and cargo were again em- 

 barked for their upward voyage. This plain was once covered 

 with a heavy growth of enormous pines, but these have long since 

 been destroyed by fires, and a stinted and scattering growth of 

 birches, poplars and blueberry bushes, taken their place. Happily 

 the road in from Patten has precluded the necessity of getting 

 supplies on and over this laborious route, and the portage is now 

 used principally by river drivers on their descending voyage in the 

 spring. 



The southern extremity of this gorge, and Godfrey's falls, were 

 very accurately delineated by the artist who accompanied Dr. 

 Jackson in hh first survey. A great portion of the eastern bank 

 is a steep, mountainous declivity of slate rock, occasionally inter- 

 spersed with trees and shrubs, and in some places presenting nearly 

 perpendicular cliffs. 



This slate rock is so soft, and so easily abraded and frittered 

 away, that it affords no record of the operation of water long ages 

 ago, as does granite in like situations ; and hence no discovery could 

 here be made of any marks or testimony as to the height of the 

 river in former times. It is however highly probable that, at some 

 early period, the bed of the river was high above its present site, 

 and there was a mighty cataract at the southern extremity of what 

 is now the present gorge, where it took its leap down to the basin 

 below the falls ; and that, by the ceaseless and rapid attrition of 

 the waters, the bed rock has been worn down to its present slope. 



May not the finer particles of this formation, ground to an al- 

 most impalpable dust by the action of the current, and suspended 

 in the descending floods which poured into the ancient lakes,* 

 far down the present Penobscot, have been gradually deposited 

 therein, and contributed to the accumulations which constitute 

 the valuable clay banks now so useful to the people who reside in 

 their vicinity? This theory may seem extravagant to some, but, 

 from observations and examinations of the effect of water in such 

 cases, we are persuaded the idea is not altogether a geological fan- 

 tasy. ' As corroborative testimony that there was once a time 

 when the principal fall was at what is now God frey's falls, may be 



* The Penobscot river in its whole length, like some other rivers in M.iue, was 

 once, undoubtedly a connected series, or chain of lakes. 



