STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 131 



rocks, feels staggered in believing that the grinding of these rocks by 

 glaciers could ever have occurred to such an extent as to have brought 

 down material sufficient to cover the whole State of Illinois, to the depth 

 of from ten to one hundred feet. 



In reading the transactions of the Scientific Association at Portland, 

 Maine, I find that Dr. Hunt made a statement that the whole Appalaclii- 

 an and Alleghanian chain of bed rocks are in a rotten or decaying condi- 

 tion to a great depth. The old rocks are there /// situ, but in a decaying 

 condition. It strikes me that there is the only spot where the rocks have 

 been laying for long geological ages — the Appalachian chain — and have not 

 been subject to diminution by glacial action. 



Now, here is one thing that relieves us from this staggering doubt of 

 the possibility of so much soil having been ground up from the rocks of 

 our northern region, and transported here. We may readily suppose that 

 all these bed rocks have been in the same condition as those named — ^just 

 the condition to be denuded by glacial action ; and hence our soil may 

 have been obtained from old, rotten rocks, subject to conditions which we 

 know nothing about — perhaps climatic conditions of which we are now 

 wholly ignorant. In all probability, such has been the case ; and these 

 northern rocks, long back of the time we have thought of, have been in 

 that condition, and the glaciers have ground them away when in that 

 condition. This relieves my mind of something that had previously 

 staggered me. 



Mr. Galusha — Is it not a fact that geologists consider this decaying 

 rock the oldest rock in America? 



Mr. McWhorter — It is not supposed, but it is known to be. The 

 underlying strata must be the oldest, and that Appalachian chain consti- 

 tutes the oldest rocks — not as old as the Canadian rocks, but the oldest 

 subject to glacial action. 



The meeting then adjourned until two o'clock P.M. 



