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Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 151 
unless notice of the proposed amendment or alteration shall have been 
given at the preceding annual meeting. ae 
Dr. Morton having arrived, took the chair as president of the 
meeting. 
- Resolved, That Prof. Locke, Dr. Jackson, and Prof. Hitch- 
cock, be appointed a committee to prepare busitiess for the Asso- 
ciation. 
Prof. Hitchcock then read a paper “on the Phenomena of Drift 
in this country,” which was illustrated by numerous drawings, 
and a map of the United States, on which were drawn lines rep- 
resenting the course of the strize, and lines of dispersion of bowl- 
ders. In the course of his paper Prof. H. called on Mr. Gray 
to describe a remarkable moraine in Andover, Mass. Mr. Gray 
Stated this moraine to be one mile long and fifteen or twenty feet 
in height. At the close-of this paper, an animated and extended 
discussion arose on the subject of drift. 
Dr. Jackson objected to the views of Prof. Hitchcock, as pub- 
lished in a recent report on the Geology of Masesichiusetts, but 
having had an opportunity, since those views were published, of 
conversing freely with Prof. H. he found but little real difference 
in their present opinions. He would, however, by no means 
consider that we could yet form an unobjectionable theory on the 
subject of-drift, polished grooves, and the transportation of erratic 
blocks of stone. If we admit several different causes, how re- 
markable would it be should they be found to have acted in nearly 
the same direction! Yet we cannot agree upon any known 
cause, as sufficient to explain all the facts. This country exhib- 
its no proofs of the glacial theory as taught by Agassiz, but on 
the contrary the general bearing of the facts is against that the- 
ory ; for we observe nowhere in this country a general radiation 
of detritus from the principal mountain ranges, although, as in 
Rhode Island, there is a divergence from the point whence the 
bowlders were derived. This divergence is however merely a 
Spreading of fifteen miles for forty in extent, and it is in the 
_ usual general direction of North American drift to the southward; 
none of the bowlders having been drifted to the north of their 
phan bed. ; ? 
Mr. Lyell offered some remarks on the subject of the distribu- 
tion of bowlders and of the furrows in the rocks, ii, the re- 
sult of many ste stacagars in i aac 
