192 TJIE PHENOMENA OF DRIFT, OR 



are one hundred or two hundred feet liigli. Several square miles 

 neai* the harbor in that town exhibit a similar aspect. 



To whatever cause any one may impute such singular eleva- 

 tions and cavities, he wiU not doubt, as he looks at them, that 

 they have now almost precisely the contour which they assum- 

 ed at their origin. And it seems to me, that every reflecting 

 mind will be still more confident, that mere currents of water 

 never could have piled up sand and gravel in this fantastic man- 

 ner, especially on so gigantic a scale. "What current of water 

 could scoop out holes, sometimes one hundred or two hundred 

 feet deep ? It is difficult enough to conceive how running water 

 could pile up a ridge of gravel, twenty or thirty feet high, with a 

 steep slope on each side : but here we have an effect vastly more 

 difficult to explain by such an agency. Yet let us imagine a large 

 body of field ice, with its under sm*face very irregular, and that 

 this, by the force of currents, has crowded along the sand and 

 gravel, so that they occupy its cavities, or are borne along upon 

 its top. It is easy to conceive, that in this way, precisely such a 

 singular configuration of the sm*face, as has been described, 

 might be produced : and when the ice melted away, the irregu- 

 larities would remain as we find them. 



The peculiar moraines that have been described, are very com- 

 mon all over the northern parts of our country ; although not 

 always large enough, or they are too much concealed by vegeta- 

 tion, to be very striking. The latter is the case at IMount Auburn, 

 in Cambridge, which owes its romantic inequaUties to this latter 

 cause. I have pointed out many localities in Massachusetts in 

 my Final Report on the Geology of that State. And I am sure 

 that they occur also in the other New-England States, as well as 

 in New York, Michigan, 6cc. As one passes along the Western 

 Rail-Road from Albany to Buffalo, he sees these moraines occa- 

 sionally ; probably, however, less numerous and distinct than in 

 the more liUly region of New England. I noticed iheni in g)-eat 

 numbers a little west of Auburn ; particiilarly in the town of 

 Victor, where they skirt the rail-road for several miles. But the 

 best example which I saw in New York, is at Mount Hope, two 

 miles south of Rochester, which is a cemetery for the city, ren- 



