Price.] ■^'J-' [March 3, 17, & 



Age, contain a vegetation more tropical in cliaracter tiian that ^vliicli pre- 

 ceded it. It seeuis probable that at this time the lands which existed as 

 such at the west of the Mississippi, were islands of limited extent, washed 

 by the Gulf Stream, which apparently had a course north and west from 

 the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Sea." Prof, llayden's Geological Survey 

 of Wyoming, &c., for 1870, p. 336. It will not be forgotten that the tropi- 

 cal vegetation spoken of, was due to the warmth of the Gulf waters flow- 

 ing to the northwestward, and perhaps, the Earth's interior heat, yet un- 

 radiated. 



As by the discrimination made in the west by which all the drift above 

 the boulder clay is ascribed io floating ice, so by the same rule the sand and 

 boulders of New^ England should be ascribed to the same cause. They 

 should be regarded as water-rolled and water-borne in ice rafts as they ap- 

 pear to have been, when existing mountains there were at different heights, 

 and Avhcre the lower ridges were not so liigh nor the valleys so deep as 

 now, and all but the highest mountains were under water, so that the ex- 

 coriations would be the more continuous, and the rocks lifted from one 

 ridge be carried upon another or dropped intermediately ; reaching Long 

 Island and the sea, or let fall at Stonington, or in the Sound and bays. Thus 

 they might have been carried to ridges now higher, without violating the 

 law of gravitation, as the latter may have risen disproportionately, as did 

 the White Mountains compared with the Green. In Ohio, Indiana, and 

 Illinois, they had not such mountains to guage the rise of the land as in 

 Xew England, by the water level, as shown by the grooves of transported 

 ice, but the water at the west left the proofs that it was the agent that 

 shaped the surface of the country more perfectly than the ice-sheet would 

 have done. Dr. Newberry speaking of the five gorges in Ohio, that gave 

 outlets to the water towards the southwest, says: "Each of these gorges 

 is now more or less filled with drift, but the remarkable similarity of level 

 which they present will strike the most casual observer, and will not fail to 

 suggest their reference to a common producing cause. All the lines of 

 drainage leading southward from these passes are marked b}' deeply exca- 

 vated channels, now more or less perfectly filled by great accumulations of 

 rolled and transported material, such as would be the natural product of a 

 copious flow of water continued through ages of time, and gradually 

 diminishing and losing its transporting power." 3 Ohio Rep. p. 47. 



Dr. Newberry speaks of repeated vertical oscillations of the surface: says, 

 " Tlie withdrawal of the water of the last submergence of the drift took 

 place slowly, and its progress was marked b}* periods of rest, and perhaps, 

 of recession ;" hence, the Turrace Epoch. lb. 50. The ice period was 

 one of an elevation of several hundred feet. It was followed by a water 

 period and warmth ; the continent five hundred feet below the water level. 

 The first deposit of this period was tlu; boulder clay. p. 6. This would 

 seem to make it a deposit under water. Then came the laminated clays, on 

 this came the forest and peat beds, which of course grew in the air. After 

 these may have grown for hundreds or thousands of years, a submergence 



