142 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



conia mountain, twenty by fifteen feet in size and fifteen feet 

 deep — water flowing through there now — most beautiful example 

 of the connections of different streams ; no workman could carve 

 it out so skilfully. It should be visited by all scientific persons. 



Dr. Jackson said, that long before the present continents loen 

 elevated above the ocean, water must have passed through thif 

 mountain gorge between the Merrimack and the Connecticul 

 rivers. 



Prof. Silliman said that no doubt the true mode of transpor 

 was ice and water ; but their great power was much underrated 

 Lieut. Ringgold, of the Expedition, said he coasted along one ice- 

 berg over seventy miles in length — a mere stranded iceberg 

 Here, then, was a mode of transport for the largest blocks we evei 

 find ; the blocks once torn off from the parent rock, and frozen in 

 then the ice melts, and the boulders drop down in line for forty 

 fifty, or sixty miles 



Mr. Hays, of the Exploring Expedition, believed the greai( 

 transporting agents to be the small icebergs of four or five mile» 

 long, which in the South Seas are continually detaching them'i 

 selves and pieces of rock along, but never carry the rock abov«i 

 two miles from the source, and thus a line of boulders might hi 

 distributed like those lines of boulders spoken of by Dr. Reed. 



Dr. Reed said the angle' in the line of boulders in Beikshirti 

 county was a direct angle of twenty-five degrees and not a curvi 



Prof. Hitchcock said that these remarks threw more light oi 

 the great moving power of these boulders than he had ever ma 

 with before ; but the chain was so narrow and regular 



Dr. Reed said the width of the chain was about 15 feet only 

 and never more than 30 feet wide. As to icebergs breaking oi 

 the top of these rocks, why did they not break off the tops of th< 

 hills close by, only a few feet lower, where the slate comes to th< 

 surface ? 



Dr. Jackson alluded to the carrying of the large copper rod 

 from Isle Royal, Lake Superior, to the Ontonagan river on a raf 

 of ice 



Prof. Rogers said that before they could establish such theories 

 they must first prove or presuppose the permanent submersion o 

 the present Continents below the level of the sea; and he chal 

 lenged proof of this from any one, as he had often done before 



i 



a 



if such had been the case, there w^ould have been great ocean tidij 

 marks to show when and where this Continent was submerged 

 But in the midland valleys of the American States there was n( 

 marine deposit in proof of this ; no marine clays or marine shell: 

 in the valleys of the Ohio, or any of those regions. There wa; 

 proof that an arm of the sea ran round at one time from the St 

 Lawrence down through Lake Champlain, making an island o 





