THE OUTDOOR WORLD. 



chance of mistake with such sober, erect, 

 thoughtful persons. 



J have no desire to extend my thought 

 to tenuity although the subject is al- 

 luring. Those who have flowers and 

 know them will recall many that pos- 

 sess marked human features. To feel 

 this is to add a joy to a spring or sum- 

 mer walk, where all the companions 

 of a lifetime come again to welcome 

 us. 



Prehistoric Mud Pies. 



BY MILO LEON NORTON, BRISTOL, CONN. 



Many misguided people, including 

 some geographers, persist in calling 

 the Tunxis, Farmington river, whereas 

 it was named by the Indians, hundreds 

 of years before a white man ever saw 

 it, "Tunxis Sepus. or the Little river, 

 in contradistinction to the Great river, 

 or the Connecticut. By this name it 

 is known in the early records. By all 

 means let the rivers, lakes and moun- 

 tains bear, as much as possible, the 

 names of the original proprietors, the 

 red men. Poetic justice demands it. 

 These natural objects so intimately 

 associated with the aborigines should 

 be their monuments, and perpetuate 

 their memory, especially when named 

 by the Indians themselves. It would 

 be just as appropriate to call the Con- 

 necticut, Hartford river, as to name the 

 Tunxis for a single town of the many 

 that it traverses. 



About two miles above Old Point 

 Comfort, at the mouth of the Tunxis, 

 in the Historic old town of Windsor, 



CURIOUS FORMS OP "MUD PIES.' 



EASILY IMAGINED TO BE UNIQUE 

 "HARDWARE" 



where the first house in Connecticut 

 was built in 1633, upon the north bank 

 of the Tunxis, accessible by canoe or 

 motorboat, is a large, sloping clay- 

 bank, rising from the water's edge to a 

 considerable height. It is bare of vege- 

 tation as it is subject to continual 

 wearing away by the current of the 

 river, this displacement causing the 

 gradual subsidence of the entire hill- 

 side, and bringing to light many thou- 

 sand curious pebbles, generally known 

 as clay-stones, but technically known 

 to brick-makers as "clay-dogs," and 

 as much appreciated by them as daisies 

 are by the average farmer. If preva- 

 lent they render the clay unfit for 

 brick-making purposes. 



At first sight they have the appear- 

 ance of being water-worn, like the peb- 

 bles in streams or on the sea-shore, 

 but their fantastic shapes, and the fact 

 that many of them are clusters, ce- 

 mented together, render some other 

 explanation of their origin necessary. 

 Scientists tell us that they are concre- 

 tions, and that they consist of particles 

 of clay and sand cemented together by- 

 carbonate of lime. The lime was origi- 

 nally deposited with the clay _ in the 

 shape of minute particles, which, by 

 being acted upon by the carbon dioxide 

 in the water, were dissolved and carried 

 along through the most porous layers 

 of the clay formation, till they became 

 supersaturated, when precipitation 

 took place, and the minerals in solu- 

 tion were attracted together by the 

 same law that attracts particles of dust 



