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286 Deerfield Disruption. © 
through the fields of imagination, invoking the poetic muse, but 
addressed myself chiefly, 
* To him who soars on golden wing, 
Guiding his fiery-wheeled throne, 
The cherub contemplation.” 
Art. XIII. On a singular Disruption -of the Ground, apparently 
by Frost, in Letters from Enwarv Hircucock, A. M. Principal 
of Deerfield Academy. 
(With a Plate.) 
To the Editor of the American Journal of Science, S¢. 
I HAVE lately examined a singular disruption in the earth, 
discovered a few days since in the northerly part of an exten- 
sive meadow in this town, about ten rods from Deerfield river- 
~The ‘soil on the spot is alluvial, consisting of a dry, rich, 
vegetable mould, with a large intermixture of sand ; and the 
field, elevated 14 feet above the bed of the river, is annually 
mowed. A valley encircles the ruptured spot on the east, south, 
and west, only five feet lower, yet so marshy and soft, as to 
render déaining necessary to make it passable; and immediate- 
ly back of this valley, on the south, rises a hill 100 feet high, 
at whose foot are several springs. North of the rupture; also, 
between it and the river, is a gradual descent of three feet: 
indeed, the ground slopes from it on every side except the 
west 
A fissure one inch wide and fourteen deep, forming a0 almost 
perfect ellipsis, whose diameters are 9 and 5} rods, marks aad 
exterior limit of the convulsion. Within this curve are Sever 
al others nearly concentric to it, some forming a quarter, and 
some half an ellipsis, and near the longer axis are others, running 
in various directions. On this transverse diameter, which lies 
