THE LOST VOLCA.VOES OF CONNECTICUT. 227 



and plausible to regard Mount Carmel and the Blue Hills as the 

 source of the ashes and bombs and lava-sheets over by Meriden 

 and up and down the valley. 



The Blue Hills have rough slopes to climb, but the view from 

 their tops and the suggestion of ptist history that one gains there 

 pay for the labor of the scramble. It is easily understood that 

 the rocks are lavas and that they have ascended through the sur- 

 rounding rocks from some deep source. It is manifest that they 

 did not rise from below when the surface of the country had its 

 present form, for in that case they must have flowed down into 

 the low lands on all sides, and they must have had the slaggy 

 and scoriaceous texture characteristic of surface lavas. One can 

 not doubt that when the lavas of the Blue Hills were placed in 

 their present relation to their surroundings they were deep un- 

 derground, inclosed by rocky walls on all sides, and heavily 

 pressed upon by the mass above. They forced their way upward 

 from some deep reservoir of molten lava because the push upon 

 them was even greater than the heavy resistance from above. 

 They reached the surface at last, hundreds or thousands of feet 

 above the present summit of the Blue Hills, and there burst out 

 in true volcanic eruption, forming a conical island in the great 

 estuary in which the valley sandstones were formed. We can 

 hardly suppose that they built a grand cone, like Fujiyama, in 

 Japan, twelve thousand feet above sea-level ; perhaps they only 

 formed a small mound, like the little temporary volcanic island 

 that appeared in the middle Mediterranean in 1831, called Graham 

 Island, Isle Julia, and Nerita, by its various discoverers. But 

 the Blue Hills were undoubtedly in eruption more than once. 

 This may be safely inferred from the complex network of their 

 pipes and dikes, as well as from the repeated occurrence of lava 

 flows among the series of bedded rocks in the Meriden district. 

 In this respect, as in others, the Blue Hills were like volcanoes of 

 our times. Some of their outpourings were more plentiful than 

 others. Mount Lamentation is part of a lava-sheet whose thick- 

 ness must be from three to four hundred feet, and whose total 

 original area must have been at least two or three hundred 

 square miles. But the other sheets are not so massive as this 

 one ; they indicate eruptions of less energy. While the erup- 

 tions were going on there must have been a great scurrying 

 about of the old reptiles whose tracks are found on the sandstone 

 beds at various points in the valley ; perhaps the patient searcher 

 may some day find one of their skeletons buried under the ashes 

 of an eruption, just as the old Pompeians have been found buried 

 under the mud and ashes from the outburst of Vesuvius that 

 destroyed their city. During the intervals of rest between the 

 eruptions a luxuriant growth of tree-ferns may have clothed the 



