28 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 



from a distance may be seen in the neighborhood. One block, 

 reckoned at not less sixty tons in weight, lies near Ray brook. 

 Ten miles away, in the old settlement of Charmingfare, is one 

 nearly double the former in size. Hundreds of others in assort- 

 ed bulk are perched here and there in every direction and at 

 all elevations. On Shirley hill, upon the very apex of the crest, 

 are three heavy bowlders lying close together, evidently parts 

 of one parent piece, and known far and wide as the "Tipping 

 Rocks." Two of these, weighing many tons each, may be put 

 in motion by the hand of a child ; the third could formerly be 

 rocked back and forth with a slight pressure, but the experi- 

 ments of thousands of visitors, and the efforts of vandals with 

 lever and fulcrum, moved it at last once too much, and it now 

 waits in place some power greater than the hand of man. Sev- 

 eral of the larger rock masses are in the vicinity of the falls and 

 some remarkable fragments lie upon the bank of the river, near 

 the great eddy below Amoskeag. 



Mere coincidence cannot reasonably be assigned for the very 

 frequent recurrence of the great bowlders in doubles or triplets, 

 split apart, and the text-books do not appear to treat of the way 

 in which this has been done, most writers making no allusion to 

 it whatever. This phenomena, however, is so common and char- 

 acteristic of transported rock-masses, carried for long distances 

 through the agency of ice, that we are impelled to attempt some 

 explanation. It must be conceded that rocks held fast in a mov- 

 ing ice-sheet, or borne upon its surface, must during their jour- 

 ney be subjected to great vicissitudes. A mass beginning with a 

 position on top might end with a place at the bottom, or even 

 be stranded along a lateral moraine. These incidents of its 

 progress would be sufficient to account for the loss of angular 

 projections as well as for the wearing, since they would be more 

 or less rounded by coming in contact with other stones. But 

 these conditions would hardly explain the separation of heavy 

 bowlders into two or more fraerments. Our solution is that dur- 



