157 



a building placed upon the brow of an elevation, a short 

 distance from the thickest settlement of the town, and 

 from which is a most beautiful landscape and water view. 

 This meeting was memorable as the first of the meetings 



attended \)y ladies, the excursions having previously been 

 confined to small parties of gentlemen, travelling in pri- 

 vate conveyances. 



A meeting was also held in the town in the following 

 summer of 1857, and again on Thursday, August 2, 1866, 

 soon after the completion of the laying of the Atlantic 

 cable, and resolutions were passed on the successful result 

 of that undertaking. At this meeting the late Chief Jus- 

 tice Chase and other distinguished persons were present. 



The chairman then called on Prof. E. S. Morse, of 

 Salem, who spoke at some length upon the cause of the 

 glacier scratches found on our pasture bowlders, illustrat- 

 ing his remarks by explanatory diagrams on the black- 

 board. The proofs of the glacial theory, the action of 

 the glaciers, the origin of moraines, the formation of ice- 

 bergs and incidental questions connected with the topic, 

 were ably presented. In the course of his remarks he 

 made a statement not generally known, that the Ameri- 

 can Indians were acquainted with the fact that the glacial 

 scratches on ledges and bowlders run north and south, 

 and that they used them as a guide. The fact is not 

 referred to in any work of science, or aboriginal history, 

 but Mr. Morse received it from an old gentleman, at 

 Portland, whose grandfather remembered that the Indians 

 sometimes found their way through the forests by scratch- 

 ing away the earth over the rock in order to note the 

 direction of the smooth scratches. 



The speaker also alluded to the somewhat current im- 

 pression that water will wear away a rock, and showed 



