METEORIC RIVERS OR WATERFALLS. 393 



it had been tilled for fifty years. We observed some trees 

 so firmly rooted in the rocks, that they could not be drawn 

 out, which were pounded off upon a level with the surface 

 of the ground, as if they had been but slender reeds. At 

 some distance above the stream, the mass parted and left a 

 few rods square of timber standing; but soon united again, 

 and, rushing on in all its tremendous power, struck ob- 

 liquely against the opposite bank of Mill Brook, with a con- 

 cussion that must have shaken the everlasting hill. This 

 bank rises very precipitously, and forms the base of another 

 peak, which towers to a great height. At this place we 

 judged the width of desolation to be twenty-five or thirty 

 rods. As the frightful moving mass now struck against an 

 immovable barrier, and its line of direction must be chang- 

 ed before it could follow the course of the stream, we should 

 expect a greater accumulation of water, &c., &c., at this 

 place, than at any other; and just below the point where 

 this wreck of the mountain tumbled into Mill Brook, I 

 should not think it exaggeration to say, that a perpendicu- 

 lar, raised from the bed of the stream as it now runs, to a 

 line drawn across the channel, and connecting points on 

 either side, where logs, sticks, &c., lie, in such a manner as 

 to show that they must have been washed there by the cur- 

 rent, would equal one hundred feet in length. It is certainly 

 surprising how, even on a mountain as precipitous as this, 

 such a mass, starting with a width of only four rods, could 

 acquire sufficient momentum to carry before it an entire 

 forest and rocks of an enormous size ; but gravity created 

 that resistless power, which could so many times change its 

 direction and urge it down the stream in defiance of all the 

 obstacles that opposed ils progress, and where the elevation 

 was constantly lessening. The principal and immediate 

 agent was water, otherwise the mass would not have pro- 

 ceeded farther than where it struck Mill Brook, for it is 

 easy to see, that a mass composed merely of trees and rocks 



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