344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



place, the block when released— i. e., by the melting of the ice— 

 from the power that transported and placed it must have slid 

 down and found a resting-place at the bottom of what is now a 

 contiguous salt marsh; and, third, the circumstance that all the 

 edges and angles of the block are as sharp and free from abrasion 

 —which last is also true of its entire surface— as if it were but 

 recently lifted from its original bed by the most modern and care- 

 ful system of quarrying. It could not obviously, therefore, in its 

 process of transportation have been rolled or tumbled about to any 

 great extent ; which conclusion in turn suggests that its move- 

 ment after the first displacement was a lifting up to its present 

 elevation, and that it was not subsequently transported to any 

 great distance laterally. The extension of the ledge on which 

 this great block rests having been largely broken up and removed 

 through its use as a quarry, what might have been evidence 

 confirmatory of this effect is now no longer obtainable. That it 

 would have been perfectly practicable, with the requisite labor 

 and machinery and large expenditure, to have quarried this block, 

 and then have lifted it up and blocked it in its present position' 

 is not to be denied ; but the idea that any such thing has been 

 done, and for no practical purpose, is perfectly untenable. The 

 surroimding country is very thinly populated, and the rock was 

 in position long before any quarry (for the obtaining of rough 

 stone for railroad construction) was worked in any immediate 

 vicinity. 



To travelers on the New London and New Haven Railroad this 

 testimonial of the forces operative in a former geological age, by 

 reason of its close proximity to the track, is clearly discernible on 

 the right-hand side going west and the left-hand going east, and 

 constitutes a most striking and picturesque object. Its obvious 

 novelty, which has thus far undoubtedly saved it from destruc- 

 tion or displacement at the hands of workmen and vandals, may, 

 it is to be hoped, continue to constitute its protection in the 

 future, although as an object of attraction and interest to tourists 

 and scientific men it is eminently worthy of care by the managers 

 of the railroad company. 



Figs. 5 and 6 are photographic reproductions of a huge bowl- 

 der, curiously disrupted on the land of Mr. Edward Atkinson, at 

 Mattapoisett, on Buzzard's Bay, Mass., and having the following 

 dimensions : Maximum height, 42 feet ; measurement through 

 the middle of the passage between the two fragments, from one 

 side to the other in a straight line, 36 feet ; average width of the 

 crack between the two fragments at the level of the ground, 3i 

 feet ; present surface area of the detached fragment, which has 

 in part been quarried away, 462 feet. 



To the trained geologist, the foregoing and all similar accounts 



