GEOLOGY. 263 



well founded, other wells in the vicinity, many of which are more 

 favorably situated for such radiation, should also be frozen; and yet 

 such is not the. case, and they never do freeze in the coldest winters. 



4. It has also been imagined that some natural freezing mixture 

 exists in the frozen strata, or in the water of the well. This is not 

 the case, the water being exactly like that of other wells in the 

 neighborhood, and the boulder bed containing nothing but rocks, 

 clay and sand. 



5. That this boulder bed is the moraine of an ancient glacier, the 

 ice and cold of which still remain. We doubt not that the boulders 

 were rounded and accumulated by the action of moving ice ; but it 

 would appear improbable that ice should remain for many thousands 

 of years, when liquid water exists both above and below this mass 

 of drift, and percolation of warmer water is< constantly taking 

 place from the surface, and it is also introduced from below quite 

 freely. 



6. The well having been stoned up in the latter part of November, 

 it has been supposed that the stones were very cold when placed in 

 the well, and that they have retained their low temperature ever 

 since, and thus, by conducting the heat away from the water in the 

 well, they have caused it to freeze. On this hypothesis one observer 

 predicted that " our curiosity would soon disappear," as the equilib- 

 rium of temperature would soon be restored between the water and 

 the walls of the well. This hypothesis has required the committee to 

 leave the question to be solved by time, and three years have passed, 

 with the regular recurrence of the icy belt, and its equally regular 

 disappearance in the autumn. Now, if it was the original coldness 

 of the stones in the well that caused the ice to form, when those 

 stones were once warmed above the freezing point they ought never 

 again to fall below it, and cause the congelation of the water. 



Since it appears that the nature and situation of the strata of 

 earth, gravel and boulders around the well causes the low tempera- 

 ture of the winter months to be preserved in the well through the 

 summer, it is probable that by imitating this condition of things in 

 the construction of a well in a similar region, we could make a well 

 that would freeze in the winter, and retain its frozen condition 

 through the summer. The experiment might require two or three 

 years for its fair trial, in order to afford time for the translation of 

 the waves of heat. The committee also remark that the occurrence 

 of ice in mines and caves where snow drifts abundantly into them 

 is not similar to the case of the Brandon well, and requires a different 

 explanation. 



INTERESTING ILLUSTRATION OF GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA. 



A recent natural occurrence in California is worthy of preserva- 

 tion and notice, for the reason that it illustrates in a clear and de- 

 cided manner certain phenomena of ancient deltas and estuary 

 deposits of Oolitic, Triassic and Carboniferous ages, whose mixture 

 of marine, fresh-water and terrestrial organisms are a puzzle to 

 geologists. 



In December, 1861, California was visited with a rain full of 



