114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and the waves setting through there, to its present width of 

 about four miles, bearing on its bosom a large part of the 

 freights of the nation. In evidence of the reasonableness of 

 this theory, are the facts, first, that on either side of this 

 Sound the shore-line is bordered by high cliffs, peering up at 

 an angle of forty-five degrees, and which, on the Vineyard 

 side, I am sure, have been very considerably worn and washed 

 away within the memory of man, insomuch that lighthouses 

 on those highlands have had to be removed further inland 

 from the frittering edges of those clifis. Then, the large 

 shoals, far down east from the Sound, show where much of 

 the sand washed out may have gone. 



All this being so, it is easy to concede that, in some great 

 glacial movement two hundred thousand years ago, or more, 

 which would naturally be from a northward to a southerly direc- 

 tion, this portion of rock, — split ofi" by the movemeut when full 

 of frost, — being attached to the immense mass of drift, was car- 

 ried to its alleged location. It may be objected, that this 

 part of the rock being on quite elevated land, it would not be 

 likely to be deposited there. But the part was declared to be 

 a bowlder, and as such, the question is. How did it come 

 there? Besides, the land itself on that part of the island 

 may have been, and probably was, in the long past, an 

 upheaval, to some extent. This view is, at least, inferable 

 from the fact, that, in the cliffs of Gay Head, which are on the 

 same side of the island at the extreme west, and but a few 

 miles from the alleged location of the bowlder, are marine 

 fossils frequently making their appearance far up, — say from 

 fifty to a hundred feet above the sea, — showing unmistakably 

 those headlands to have been an upheaval. Finally, even 

 though this rock has not its other part, as held, anywhere, it 

 is said to be a bowlder, and, as such, the question recurs. 

 How did it come there ? 



The Board then took up the subject of Vegetable Culture 

 and Market-Gardening, and Mr. Hadwen, of Worcester, was 

 called upon to open the discussion. 



