390 PHILOSOPHY OF STORMS. 



Letter of Mr. Theron Baldwin. 



NEW HAVEN, AUGUST 14, 1828. 

 To PROFESSOR SILLIMAN, 



SIR, The following notice, first issued at Montpelier, 

 went the rounds of the papers in the course of the last 



summer. 



MONTPELIER, JULY 10, 1827. 



Avalanche. A gentleman at Fayston, on whose vera- 

 city the most implicit reliance may be placed, has obligingly 

 furnished us with the following account of an avalanche of 

 earth or slide of the mountain in Lincoln, Addison county, 

 on the 27th ult., occasioned by the late abundant and almost 

 incessant rains. On the 30th of June, I went, in company 

 with sixteen of my neighbors, to visit the spot so singularly 

 marked by Providence, which I am now about to describe. 

 I found the slide to commence near the top of the mountain, 

 between two large rocks, which were stripped of earth, 

 opening a passage of four rods wide, from which it pro- 

 ceeded in a south easterly direction, gradually widening 

 for the distance of two hundred rods, to the south branch 

 of Mill Brook, in Fayston. In its course, it swept every 

 thing in its way, overturning trees by their roots, divesting 

 them of roots, branches and bark, and often breaking them 

 in short pieces. A number of rocks, judged to weigh from 

 fifteen to twenty Ions, were moved some distance. From 

 where it entered Mill Brook, its course "was in a north east- 

 erly direction, two hundred and eighty rods, the natural 

 course of the brook being very small ; but the channel, cut 

 by this torrent, is now from two to ten rods in width, and, 

 on either side, are large quantities of flood wood piled up 

 very high, from fifteen to twenty rods of the lower part, it 

 is blocked up across the channel in every direction; some 

 of the trees are standing on their tops, and generally strip- 

 ped of roots, branches and bark, and broken into many 



