740 [Assembly 



discovered, and " that ripple marks appear at the depth of 70 or 

 80 feet." 



'^ Split rock.^^ — Travellers in passing through Lake Champlain, 

 observe in the town of Essex, a remarkable point, known to the 

 French as " Rocher fendu " and to the English as " Split rock." It 

 contains about an half acre of land, and rising thirty feet above 

 the water, in a bold, precipitous front, is separated from the 

 promontory by a fissure of ten feet in width. Its slope and 

 position, has created the belief, that it lias been detached from 

 the adjacent headland by its own weight, and in some shock of 

 nature, although it has probably been separated in the gradual 

 attrition of the earth and disintegrating rocks, by the action of 

 the elements. It is a striking and interesti-ng formation. Guide 

 books and some "pictorial histories " of higher pretensions, des- 

 cribe an abyss of live hundred feet in depth, dividing the rock 

 from the promontory. I visited it, last antumn and walked 

 through the fissure, two feet above the level of the lake. 



Near Port Kendall in Chesterfield, another of these remarka- 

 ble phenomena occurs, to which frequent allusion has been made. 

 The outlet of several ponds upon these highlands, unite in a 

 stream which forms at this place, a very superior water power, 

 directly upon the margin of Lake Champlain. The water rushes 

 a distance of 40 or 50 rods above the fall, through a chasm, which 

 appears to have been opened by some mighty physical convulsion. 

 It presents a gulf 60 or 70 feet wide, with a depth of 30 or 41) feet. 

 At the extremity of this passage the stream plunges into the lake 

 over a precipice of about 40 feet.* 



• Levi Higby, Esq, 



