Transactions. 35 



The former, as every traveller or even reader knows, is a 

 river of ice solid yet plastic — constantly in motion grinding 

 down and polishing the rocks in its banks and channel, and 

 in certain circumstances producing the strise referred to. 

 The Iceberg is adequate to the production of the same 

 results with its million horse power grinding and grooving the 

 rocks at the bottom of the ocean. In possession of this pre- 

 liminary information, let us now examine the "Crichton 

 Boulder" and hear what it has to say for itself. 



This Boulder was recently disinterred from its resting 

 place of boulder-clay near to the S. C. Asylum. It lay about 

 six feet below the original surface and had probably not been 

 disturbed since its interment, a very long time ago. It is a 

 mass of rock, which may be described as a rounded cuboid in 

 form with a diameter of about three feet. If we examine it 

 we find that it is rounded in its outline, its angles and corners 

 having been rubbed away, and so it has the first characteristic 

 of a Boulder. 



If we examine it yet more closely we find that it is not 

 only rounded but smoothed, planed, polished over its entire 

 surface, and so it possesses the second characteristic of a 

 Boulder. 



In like manner we shall find that, especially on one of 

 its surfaces, it presents a parallel series of narrow shallow 

 grooves or stiiae, as they are technically termed, and so it 

 presents the third characteristic of a Boulder. 



If we use our eyes aright, however, we shall, I apprehend, 

 detect other important and significant indications. One of 

 the indications referred to is presented by a hollow or de- 

 pression on the surface of one of its sides. When we nar- 

 rowly examine this depression we find it polished equally with 

 the more prominent parts of the surface. This leads us to 

 an important warrantable inference. A joiner's plane, for 

 example, does not reach a depression in the surface it is 

 applied to — other means have to be used — so in nature, for 

 the law is equally applicable to a mountain as to a mole. 

 This might be accomplished by sand, for example, with the 



