174 THE PHENOMENA OF DRIFT, OR 



norlliwestem slopes of mountains that are thus smoothed and 

 striated. I have seen a few cases, however, in which a gentle 

 southeastern declivity exhibits these markings ; as on the road 

 from Windsor, in Massachusetts, to Cummington ; and the 

 southern side of llie summit of Mount Monadnoc in New Hamp- 

 shire, shows them on a much steeper slope. But on the north- 

 western side of mountains they are much more distinct, and 

 frequenlly commence three hundred or four hundred feet below 

 the summit : nay, I am inclined to believe in some instances, at a 

 much lower level. Examples of this sort occur all along the steep 

 western side of the Taconic range of mountains, forming the 

 western boundary of Massachusetts. In passing from Peru to 

 Worthington, we ascend (I believe in the eastern part of the 

 former town,) a long but gentle slope, thus smoothed and fur- 

 rowed. This is near the highest part of the Hoosac Mountain 

 range in Massachusetts. Another example I noticed in passing 

 from Worthington to Middlefield, where the slope was much 

 steeper. Mount Everett is a rounded eminence connected with 

 the Taconic range, in the southwest corner of Massachusetts, 

 about two thousand six hundred feet high, and very steep on its 

 nortliern side. Yet strife occur there several hundred feet below 

 the suminit. Finally, they are distinct on Monadnoc ; and some 

 portions of the surface where they appear, slope as much as sixty 

 or seventy degrees. This is near the summit, where, it ought to 

 be stated, is more iiTcgularity in the direction of the sti'ioD than I 

 have witnessed elsewhere.* 



Now did we find these stria? all pointing to the summit of the 

 mountain as their centre of radiation, and an accumulation of 

 detritus at the foot of the mountain, we might infer that the force 

 acted downwards and not upwards. But in general, the striae 

 seem to have no reference to the summit of the hill, and their 

 course leads along the face of the hill at every degree of obliquity, 

 while the detritus detached by this agency, will be found earned 



* Janiiary 1, 1843. In Mr. D.^rwin's Paper on the Ancient Glatiers of Caernarfonshire, 

 in the New Ed. Phil. Journal for Oct. 1842, p. 362, I have jnst seen a case of strife describ- 

 ed analosi'ous to that on Monadnoc. " On one particular face of the rock,'' says he, 

 " inclined at an angle of somewhere about fifty degrees, continuous, well-marked and 

 nearly parallel lines sloped upward, (in a contrary sense to the surface of the glaciers,) 

 at an angle of eighteen degrees with the horizon." 



