ii2 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



And as I stand on the Mississippi, and ])ehold a valley ten, 

 twenty, or even tifty miles wide, am I surprised at its width, when 

 I reflect that it has been flowing in its present channel since the 

 esarly days of the siluriau ! 



When an engineer measures a borrowing pit, on the line of a 

 railroad, he looks for some corresponding embankment, which 

 shall equal in corresponding cubic feet to the earth removed from 

 the pit. So when I measure a mile in height, and two and a half 

 at its base, borrowed from the taconic, I And in the silurian where 

 it has been transported. Or if I measure from the folds of the 

 Alleirhanies, fifteen hundred or two thousand feet in height, and 

 eleven miles in length, at the base, I am not surprised at the loss, 

 if alono- the line of the transporting power, I find twenty miles in 

 width of dumping ground, in the Mesosoic — and a still greater 

 width of cretaceous and tertiary, extending from Port Tobacco to 

 Fortress Munroe. 



How much of the continent will it take to fill up the Gulf of 

 Mexico? To extend the Atlantic shore to the inner edge of the 

 Gulf Stream? To unite Nautucket and St. George's shoals to Cape 

 Cod ? Sable Island to Nova Scotia ? and the banks of Newfound- 

 land to the Island of the same name? 



Before this is accomplished, our valleys will be much wider and 

 our lofty hills sufier a corresponding degradation. Given the 

 soundings ofl' shore, we learn the amount of material wanted — 

 o-iven the rapidity of the streams bearing their burden seaward, 

 we shall know the time required for transportation. The work 

 to be done, is not equal to that already accomplished. What the 

 past has seen performed, the future may realize; the Highlands 

 mav be lowered to the level of the Hudson, and cloud-defying 

 Round Top, be degraded to an insignificant hill. 



Adjourned. 



American Institute — Polytechnic Association, 



May 24, 1806. 



Prof. S. D. Tillman in the Chair; T. D. Stetson, Secretary. 

 The meeting was opened by the presentation of the following 

 selected items: 



Isinglass. 



The Gloucester Telegraph says that Rockport is almost alone 

 in an old established, but quite a novel business, the manufacture 



