378 PHILOSOPHY OF STORMS. 



The small hole is about five feet in diameter, and four 

 and a half feet deep. The earth is washed out below this 

 basin on a level with its bottom, and there is a sugar maple 

 of thirty-nine inches in circumference, yet standing erect on 

 its base of wide-extended roots, about twelve yards from the 

 basin where it must have grown, as there is no place below 

 where the ground is washed sufficiently deep to have re- 

 moved the tree. The force of water here was much greater 

 than any one would have supposed, as the ground over 

 which this tree was moved was very slightly inclining to 

 the horizon. The ground was very hard on this side of 

 the hill, and was but little furrowed below the basin in 

 comparison with the great quantity of water which evi- 

 dently fell. 



The loose materials were lying undisturbed at the very 

 brink of this basin, as in all the rest, and there was no 

 drain of water above leading to it. The cause of this lat- 

 ter fact appeared difficult to understand until this last ba- 

 sin, with the small circular cut in its side, was seen. This 

 cut was so distinct that there can be no doubt it was made 

 by a descending column of water not greater in diameter 

 than itself, and, as it could hardly be a distinct column fall- 

 ing in contact with a larger one, it seems almost certain that 

 the large basin and the small circular cut at its side, were 

 made by one and the same descending column, not more 

 than five feet thick at its lower extremity, wavering about 

 until it cut out a basin of twenty feet in diameter, and de- 

 viating from that boundary five feet, and cutting out the 

 small perpendicular hole at its side. In this way all the 

 other basins might have been cut by a column of water 

 much less in diameter than themselves. This explanation 

 seems the only possible one of the phenomenon in question. 

 For if the column of descending water had been large 

 enough to fill the basin, it seems certain that all light ma- 

 terials wpuld have been driven away some distance from 

 the upper brink. 



