48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF 



hence he infers that the cause which produced the elevation was 

 paroxysmal in its operation and effects, and not secular, or grad- 

 ual and unintenupted. In order to explain the theory of diluvigd 

 phenomena, he would suppose with Mr. Lyell and others, that 

 the region around the nortii pole was capped with ice, in immense 

 masses, and that, by a sudden outburst of volcanic action, this 

 was dispersed, and sent in a quaquaversal direction towards the 

 equator. But if we suppose that this was accompanied by an 

 earthquake, rocking, or wave-like motion of the bed of the ocean, 

 the whole mass of torn-up strata would be shoved violently from 

 north to south, and at every heaving of the earth, a mass of water 

 would be thrown forward, like the rolling in of a tremendous surf. 

 Mr. Couthouy's observations among the coral islands, would go 

 to strengthen this theory, while the rocking movement of the 

 eai'th's surface during an earthquake, had been long ago admit- 

 ted. 



Mr. CouTHOuY remarked, in relation to the paroxysmal rise of 

 the land at intervals, that on one island w^hich he had visited, 

 which was about two hundred feet in elevation, about one 

 half-way from the base to the summit, the fiace of the cliff was 

 deeply sea-worn and indented; and were it at this moment 

 to be still further elevated above the ocean level, it would 

 present similar marks of powerful and long-continued action of 

 water, at the part which was before on a line with the sea. In 

 regard to the bowl-shaped cavities, encircled on all sides by reg- 

 ular hills, he suggested that they might have been worn by the 

 rotary motion of icebergs ; this rotary or semi-rotary motion of 

 the icebergs, he had noticed both in those which w'ere and were 

 not stranded. They become gi-adually worn away on one side 

 by the action of the water, when they turn over, with a displace- 

 ment of the sea, and violent upheaving of the mud and sand, 

 rendering the water turbid to a great distance. 



The discussion was continued by Mr. Lyei,l and Mr. Cou- 

 THOUY, on the probable agency of icebergs in diluvial phenome- 

 na, and especially in regai-d to the water-worn cavities or pot- 

 holes. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson described the pot-holes which occur in 

 Orange, near Canaan, in the elevated land between the Connec- 

 ticut and Merrimack rivers in New Hampshire. They are worn 

 in a hard granite-gneiss, in a line following the general north and 

 south direction of the diluvial or drift cun-ent. One whicii had been 

 cleared of the round, smooth stones which formerly filled it, and 

 which is known to the inhabitants as " the well," is eleven feet 



