88 ᾿ REPORT—1850. 
exhibited, which the author had measured, mainly with a common leyelling instru- 
ment, so as to show their height above the rivers and above the ocean. They varied 
in height above the rivers, from 7 feet to 1882 feet ; and above the ocean, from 36 to 
2022 feet. These details cannot here be given, but they formed the basis of the fol- 
lowing conclusions :— 
All the beaches and terraces described in this paper were formed subsequent to the 
drift, since they lie above the remodified drift and the scratched surfaces of the rocks. 
The process of rounding, sorting, and re-arranging the materials (drift chiefly) has been 
going on ever since the drift period. As high as we find such processes to have gone 
on, we must infer the presence of water. Hence we may be sure, that since the drift 
period, water has covered the valley of the Connecticut to at least 1200 feet above 
tide water, since we find distinct beaches (in Shutesbury) at that height; also less 
modified shelves (in Shutesbury, Pelham, Heath, Washington, and Peru), 1237, 1590, 
1658, and 2022 feet. It is the ocean which has covered the greater part of New 
England since the drift period, for there could be no basins to hold bodies of fresh 
water at such a height. 
To account for the effect by barriers of ice in the region under consideration, would 
have required the improbable supposition of ice more than 1000 feet thick. The 
author added various applications of these views to explain the formation of deltas, 
by a quiet and equable process, free from sudden or paroxysmal efforts and alternating 
pauses; the occurrence of many lateral terraces at successively lower levels, and 
the downward slope of these terraces. He allows of paroxysmal movements in the 
case of Glen Roy, whose phznomena are of a different order, and admits the occa- 
sional evidence of floating ice on the irregular mounds of the upper terraces. On the 
distinction between drift and modified drift, the author rests some conclusions regard- 
ing the lapse of time in the production of particular phenomena. Thus Deerfield 
River has worn 80 feet into very bad gneiss since the date of the drift ; the occurrence 
of man’s remains is limited to the most recent terraces of mcdern river action; the 
evidence of modern organic forms on the area of North America is in like manner 
limited to a period since the drift. Drift is regarded by Prof. Hitchcock as mainly pro- 
duced under an ocean crowded with great icebergs, derived from corresponding gla- 
ciers, which ocean has been gradually withdrawn. 
On the Dispersion of Granite Blocks from Ben Cruachan. 
By WixiiaM Hopkins, .A., FBS. 
Remarks on the Central Heat and Density of the Globe, as also the Causes of 
Volcanic Phenomena. By Stevenson Macapam, Edinburgh. 
The object of the present paper is to substitute for the commonly received theory 
of a central heat, one which will demonstrate that a cool external crust is quite com- 
patible with a hot central mass. The author admitting, with geologists in general, the 
gradual augmentation of heat downward from the surface, finds no necessary con- 
nexion between this fact and an internal fluid nucleus, on the ordinary laws which 
regulate the movement of heat. The view which he proposes is founded upon the 
assumption by matter when raised in temperature of the peculiar state distinguished 
as the spheroidal. The author describes the state of knowledge on this subject, for 
the greater part of which we are indebted to M. Boutigny, who made similar 
observations upon water and other liquids, as well as on various solids, and arrived at 
the following conclusions :— 
Ist. That all bodies can pass into the spheroidal state. 
2nd. That the temperature of bodies in the spheroidal state, whatever be the tem- 
perature of the vessel which contains them, is invariably inferior to their point of 
- ebullition. 
3rd. That there is no contact between bodies in the spheroidal state and the sur- 
faces of the heated vessels on which they are placed. 
4th. That bodies in the spheroidal state exhibit absolute reflexion in regard to heat. 
Referring to the several modes of experiments from which these conclusions have 
‘ been derived, the author proceeds to the more immediate object of this paper, viz. 
“< ὅγἷά“, 
4 
Νὴ 
