EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 141 



starting point. They form an unbroken chain of rocks ; the 

 larp;est and most numerous of them are on the eastern side of the 

 hills they cross ; a few are on the western side. 



Prof. Hitchcock said it could not be accounted for on any known 

 theory of drift how these boulders were placed where they were. 

 It was remarkable to see this chain of boulders for a few rods 

 wide and miles in length, like the grading of a railroad — carried 

 over the hills in an oblique direction — an unbroken chain. We 

 can see the outline very clear. Edges and angles, sharp and 

 unbroken ; it goes straight to a certain point for twenty miles, and 

 then turns at a sharp angle of twenty-five degrees. What ice- 

 berg could have carried them all to that spot — some half as large 

 is this room 7 IIow could it detach them from the parent rock ? 

 TTow could water carry them in a bee line in this way, and carry 

 htm oliquely over these hills seven hundred feet high ? It was 

 mswered by some, supposing the ice to freeze round an island — 

 i)r top of mountain — and then immense earthquake waves come 

 imd rock them oil, and these boulders thus dropped by the waves. 

 I Dr. Jackson supposed it owing to the existence of ancient lakes, 

 iind their freezing ; the ice and water brought these boulders left 

 jhem on the shores of the lakes. We see this going on in Lake 

 Superior now — every kind of boulder of the upper country is 

 bund scattered around the Sault St. Marie — or the outlet of the lake. 



Prof. Dewey observed that Prof. Hitchcock had shown that ice- 

 )ergs, (Sec, had carried large blocks of greywacke of Catskill over 

 lills twelve hundred feet high into the Housatonic valley. 



Dr. Barrett said that there were enormous masses of dirty yel- 

 ow quartz lying in Middletown, rounded, oval, like an egg, and 

 lat like a lapstone. One in front of a Mr. Bacon's house, from 

 its size and shape, was called Bacon's pudding ; these were lying 

 jeveral feet above the level of the valley of the Connecticut ; had 

 jhe land risen on which they lay, or had the Connecticut river 

 alien ? Had we any means of knowing what was the height of 

 he Connecticut four thousand years ago ? Now^ the Nile, five 

 lundred miles above its mouth, at Phile, is twenty-four feet lower 

 ban it was four thousand years ago. 



Prof. Hithcock said that the terrace lines along the valley of 

 be Connecticut, alone show that the river was once at those 

 eights. We have no means of gauging it within any historic 

 ecord. 



Dr. Jackson said that the ancient pot holes eleven feet deep in 

 qe hardest granite on the tops of mountains dividing Merri- 

 aack and Connecticut were full of pebbles, and show that the 

 Connecticut and Merrimac were once connected. Eleven hun- 

 'red feet is the height of the mountain on which they are found. 



Prof. Silliman spoke of the remarkable pot holes on the Fran- 



