GLACIO-AQUEOUS ACTION IN NORTH AMERICA. 193 



dered very romantic by these peculiar moraines, which are larger 

 and more striking than at Mount Auburn. One cavity here is 

 some sixty or seventy feet deep, with very steep sides, and nearly 

 circular. I observed that this group of moraines extends a mile 

 or two east of the cemetery. These hills cannot be far from the 

 remarkable smoothed surfaces of limestone, so well described by 

 Professor Dewey, in the vicinity of Rochester. No doubt the 

 two phenomena are connected. 



The southeastern part of Massachusetts exhibits the most re- 

 markable examples of these tortuous and conical moraines which 

 I have seen. They extend along the sea-coast from Kingston to 

 Falmouth, nearly fifty miles. And really they are of mountainous 

 size; sometimes two hundred, or even three hundred (Monomet 

 Hill in Plymouth) feet high. Standing upon one of these hills, 

 the surface appears like that of the ocean just after a storm. The 

 drift is composed here of enormous bowlders, pebbles and sand ; 

 and the bowlders are often of such size and in such numbers, as 

 to give the impression to the most practiced eye, of large naked 

 ledges in situ. No ledges, however, appear in that region ; and 

 excepting the moraines, the country is but little uneven. 



Another remarkable example has been already referred to, near 

 the eastern extremity of Cape Cod. Its situation is on the coast, 

 with no high land near. These moraines are the only ones I 

 have seen entirely composed of sand, (except perhaps between 

 Albany and Schenectady) and yet they yield to none in size in 

 New England, except perhaps some of those akeady described 

 on the west side of Massachusetts Bay. 



I have mentioned these two cases, chiefly on account of their 

 important bearing upon the theory of the origin of moraines. In 

 these instances we find them of gi'eater size than any where else ; 

 and yet situated, one set of them fifty, and the other one hundred 

 miles distant from any mountain much higher than themselves, 

 and more than tvvo hundred miles distant from any mountain 

 that could ever have sent out glaciers. The conclusion seems 

 irresistible, that they could not have been produced by ordinary 

 glaciers, descending the slopes of mountains by expansion. But 

 if produced by enormous icebergs, it is as easy to conceive of the 



