HISTORY OF DEKRYFIELD. II 



described in these opening chapters. We say only and stand by 

 by it, that there was fire, water and steam, fume of gas and' 

 molten flood, ice and snow, by turns and altogether, in such 

 horrible fashion as no new nor old notion of hell can illustrate. 

 If we seek for evidence, present and eloquent witnesses await 

 our interrogations. 



Let us first suppose such a state of things as has been hinted 

 at, when there was this preponderating amount of surface water ; 

 that following this period, in necessary sequence, the effects of 

 evaporation and condensation succeeded ; that in simple obedi- 

 dience to cosmical laws milder methods of dissipation of energy 

 were made possible, and that finally, during a period of intense 

 cold, the whole or nearly the whole maximum mass of water at 

 this parallel was converted into ice, and we are furnished with 

 at least a tentative theory if not a working hypothesis. 



One familiar with the testimony of the rocks and the environ- 

 ment of our modern water-systems cannot doubt that something 

 much like this did happen ; that the very zone we now inhabit 

 was once and probably more than once delivered over to the 

 rigors of an arctic winter. In the light of the highest and best 

 equi[)ped recent scientific authorities no prime fact is more 

 rightfully believed than that a large portion of this now temper- 

 ate belt was once deeply covered with ice, and for so vast a 

 cycle that it must have been regarded as perpetual by the people 

 of that age, if people there were. 



A WITNESS OR TWO. 



Again without pausing to discuss the causes which brought 

 about this condition, and not even considering the possibility of 

 its recurrence, it assuredly follows that such an age of ice could 

 not and did not come and go without leaving its mark. 



During a long and busy life Prof. Agassiz accumulated a vast 

 amount of information as to the agency of glacial action in pro- 

 ducing geological effects. A student of glaciers for forty years, 



