140 QUARTERLY JOURMAL. 



use Sykes's thermometer. These observations it is also believed 

 will also bring out proof of the existence of a deep shoal one 

 hundred and twenty miles south of St. George's Banks. The 

 coast of Georgia shows that the Gulf Stream on quitting the coasi 

 of Florida does not run due north as before, but to the northwarc 

 and westward ; and tjiis will explain the apparent problem wh) 

 the Gulf Stream runs with greater velocity off Cape Fear and Hat- 

 teras. Careful observations are also to be made in relation to i 

 stream of warm water setting from the coast of China to the north 

 west coast of America; and it is expected to find currents wel 

 marked running through Bhering's straits along the north coas 

 of America into Baffin's Bay, and along the coast of northern Asia 



The committee add that our ships have all the necessary instru 

 ments except Sykes's thermometer ; and the skill of Americai 

 officers is so proverbial that the body of information thus collectei 

 would be invaluable. 



On motion, the committee was continued ad infinitum^ and th 

 report accepted ; report to be matured by the committee and Mi 

 Redlield, and transmitted to Washington to the Secretary of th 

 Navy to be sent out in our ships of war to China. 



No remarks were elicited by this report. 



Papers on oceanic drift were called for. None came at the call 



The President called for the paper by Dr. Reed, on a chain C| 

 erratic serpentine rocks in Berkshire. He stated that the chaij 

 begins at Canaan Hill, Columbia Co., with the talcose slate. 11 

 hills are crowned by slate or grey wacke, but melted so as to lose thei 

 slaty character. These are carried down the hills, and over hills 

 and we go down the valley between the Canaan and Richmond Hill^ 

 and there meet immense masses of these rocks — boulders — clos 

 by the State line. We go on through Richmond valley, and fin 

 50 blocks, twenty thousand cubic feet in size, above ground 

 on a little south, cross Lenox mountain into another valle> 

 and there meet more boulders ; through Stockbridge, east of Leno 

 mountain, and meet them again, all of the same geological charail 

 ter. Within about two hundred rods of Canaan, slate comes 1 

 the surface ; and hence proceeds another chain parallel to the first- 

 not aspecimenin the valley beneath, but many south of the southei 

 range. The metamorphic rock crowns the summit of all. TJ»I 

 is an intermediate range between the talcose slate of the Taconi 

 range, and the greywacke west of the Hudson. The only rock i 

 situ in Richmond county is lime. These boulders have no scratches 

 their angles are perfect ; they have been brought by water, an 

 "this side up with care," seems to have been marked on them, an' 

 attended to ; edges and angles distinct beyond belief. The rang 

 is thirty miles long, and only twenty rods wide. The hill crosse 

 by the boulders is one hundred feet higher than Canaan hill, ttj \\ 



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