by the Bae power of freezing Water. ~~ 139 
stone with r igious reverence, and speak of it as their 
god, eracaia it has followed them in their various remo- 
vals, slowly indeed, but to a considerable distance. The 
truth i is, a stout young man resolved to amuse himself with 
the credulity of his tribesmen, and therefore, whenever he 
passed that way, took up the stone, which was too large to 
be removed by a man of ordinary strength, and carried it 
some distance westward. In this manner, the stone ad- 
vancing by little and little, made in a few years a consid- 
erable progress, and was verily believed to have moved 
this distance spontaneously. The young fellow told the 
story to an American gentleman, and laughed heartily at 
the credulity of his. countrymen.”? But had the rock which 
Dr. Dwight saw been of dimensions which would render a 
trick like this possible, he would surely have suspected it ; 
itis highly improbable that the strange and trouble- 
some deception should be attempted i in two places; and in 
the statement quoted from the Massachusetts Transac- 
tions, some of the stones are said to be of two or three tons 
weight. That statement appears to have been re-printed 
from a Portland newspaper, the place where the phenom- 
enon is said to exist, being only eighteen miles from Port- 
land. Any thing, therefore, which might be so easily con- 
tradicted or disproved, would hardly have been published, 
uniess it had been commonly believed. But if science and 
literature are making such progress in this part of the 
United States as some suppose, the matter will doubtless 
be investigated as it deserves, and the truth or falsehood 
ascertained of statements apparently so impossible.”—p. 
17th, of the Review. 
comparing the narrations of Dr. Dwight and your 
correspondent Petros, your readers will perceive, that, 
though circumstantially different in some respects, they 
relate to the same objects. The testimony, also, in rela- 
tion to these effects, iscertainly not 'to be resisted. There 
is a pond in Rhode-Island in which similar phenomena are 
seen, and perhaps if inquiry — ret. they might not 
be found to be very uncommo 
The cause to which I am inclidiediiaeattribute them, and 
which appears to me satisfactory, is, the operation of the 
ice. The manner, in which the effect is produced, [| con- 
ceive to be this. The i ice forms firmly about the rock, and 
