we Staccato G 
in regard to every particular wy that-has been proposed. I con- 
fess myself to have been re: of that number, - Yet it has seemed 
to me of useful tendency to make isolated. inferences from the 
facts developed ; and although they may seem.to fayor rival hy- 
potheses, and will need modification, as new light falls on the 
subject, yet they will form the elements out of which a legitimate 
theory will ultimately spring. Allow me to present for your con- 
sideration, a summary of the most important of these inferences, 
as they have been developed to my. own mind in examining the 
‘diluvial phenomena of this country. : 
Inthe first place, these phenomena must have been the result 
of some very general force, or forces, operating in the same gen- . 
eral direction ;. that is, southerly or southeasterly. For in a 
southerly. direction has the drift been so uniformly carried, and 
the furrows and. seratches onthe rocks. so generally point south- 
erly, that the f fone paaback produced these effects must have tend- 
ed thither:» Our valle udeed,» considerably, modified the 
course.of the drift; but not. er adict the general 
ee ng eae eee } -should 
_ not discover hereyas inesheo: ‘Alps and. in- Gn at ‘Syke 
moving force had sometimes, been exert ted on itwardly_ 
axes of high mountains. But. 1 am. not aware that as - ret 
facts of importance in favor of such.an opinion, have been brought 
tolight. At any rate, the evidence of a foree urging. _ detritus 
_and bowlders in a southerly, or more strictly-in a southeasterly 
direction, i is too marked, and has been noticed by too many inde- 
‘pendent observers, over a breadth of nearly two thousand miles, 
“to be doubted ; even though local exceptions | should be discoyer- 
ed ;—and such a uniformity of, Apes over so. vast an area, in- 
dicates a very general agency. — 
» Secondly, this agency has operated me all Foe ye the 
~~ sea level, and probably, beneath it, to the height of three 
housand nd ory four | thousand feet... In oes England, most of our 
ills and. mountains, not excepting sulated peaks, not higher 
than three thousand feet, are catieatly smoothed and furrowed 
on their tops. and netthern slopes, and upon. their east and. west 
anks, “to the bottom tom of the lowest valleys. Dr. Jackson sup- 
dele us on Mount. Katahdin, 
d.dieaores po ns of this 
; Ha 
Vol. xt ‘No. eee 32 
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