10 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 



Let US now inquire in a general way what we find to be the 

 environment of our typical New England river. At its sources 

 we usually discover great rock masses, detached from the cliffs 

 of the mountains. Along the course of the precipitous, tum- 

 bling torrent — the trout-water of the sportsman — we find im- 

 mense bowlders, more or less carved and water-worn, their angu- 

 lar projections rounded, their bulk diminished and lessened as 

 they course down the rough miles of attrition. At the foot of 

 the descent we shall find aggregations of smaller bowlders, with 

 cobble-stones and pepples. He who wades and follows, rod in 

 hand, the bed of one of these mountain tributaries may step 

 confidently from one stone to another and find firm footing, rare- 

 ly meeting one that turns under his tread. The reason is as 

 simple as it is significant, for each of these detached rocks has 

 been many times rolled over and wrenched from its lodgment 

 until it has at length found the groove that fits and holds it. 



Where two mountain streams unite we shall generally find a 

 tongue of land, or rather a delta of stone, usually symmetrical 

 in form and built of assorted layers of stones and pebbles, seem- 

 ingly put together with the discrimination of design. These 

 shining, parti-colored beds are the bowlders in miniature. Still 

 lower we find the smaller pebbles, gravels of varying fineness, 

 then sand, and last of all mud or silt. 



We can never view a bank of earth, laid bare by accident or 

 design, exhibiting its curiously stratified layers, without refer- 

 ring to this sorting and sifting process, this violent picking and 

 choosing of torrents, while we stand in wonder at the delicate 

 threads of deposition laid almost tenderly in place by succeeding 

 quiet waters. 



We have space merely to mention other tremendous agencies 

 which have contributed to the landscape some of its most rugged 

 features. We can only now hint at the ruin caused by streams 

 dammed by drifting ice, or by the accumulation of more perman- 

 ent obstacles, but there should not be left out of account the 



