262 SURFACE GEOLOGY. 



declivity, pushed them over, and left them on the lee side of the hill. 

 The contrast between the smooth fields south of Prospect hill and the 

 rough pastures towards Mill Village is very strongly marked. On the 

 hill north-east from Colburn's, in the edge of Lebanon, is another enor- 

 mous accumulation of large gneissic blocks. On the College grounds, to 

 the west of Culver hall, the surface was formerly covered by numerous 

 large blocks of hornblende schist, sometimes ten feet across, derived 

 from the adjacent ledges, and transported southerly by the Connecticut 

 glacier. Excavations showed that some of them occupied an unstable 

 position ; if the earth were removed from their sides, they would topple 

 over. It is a characteristic of till, that many of the boulders are so situ- 

 ated, and it bears witness to their method of removal. Had they fallen 

 from an iceberg, they would rest with the centre of gravity in eqiiilibrio. 

 Now they are kept in a forced position, such as would result from the 

 shoving along of a pile of debris, or such action as arises from the move- 

 ment of a glacier. Underneath this clayey coarse drift the material is 

 gravelly and less compact, derived from the gneissic rather than the 

 slaty rocks of the neighborhood. 



Qucchee Railroad Cut. Between Hartford and Quechee villages the 

 Woodstock Railroad has cut deeply into the lower till, affording the hand- 

 somest exhibition of the two varieties of till yet displayed in this region. 

 The cut is 40 feet deep, three fourths of it being the lower member, very 

 compact, full of small-sized glaciated stones cemented together by thick 

 boulder clay. Every stone is striated. There are great numbers of the 

 Burlington red sandstone, and many beautiful green serpentines. The 

 most common are of gray quartzite. One was composed of a fossil coral. 

 The red stones have travelled the greatest distance, from over the Green 

 Mountains, about sixty miles. Concerning these and the similar ones at 

 Hanover, it is to be remarked that they were raised over an acclivity of 

 3,000 feet altitude as well as transported a great distance. The upper 

 ten feet of this cut is a typical locality for the upper till. There is the 

 distinctively reddish-brown color, loose consistency, rough blocks com- 

 mon with an occasional striated one, and very many of the siliceous lime- 

 stones of the neighborhood. None of the latter were observed in the 

 lower till. 



