THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



119 



have tlie evidence at the foot of the Cardigan, a 

 mountain with a Buffalo back that peers up be- 

 tween the two rivers central in New Hampshire, 

 at one of the lowest points of the ridge dividing 

 their waters. Whoever has visited the tails of 

 any considerable stream in the dry season of the 

 year, will have generally remaiked the formiiii^: of 

 holes in the rock by the wearing and passing 

 over of the waters. These lioles are nrnde by the 

 whirl of smaller stones wearing continually upon 

 the fixed rock. At the foot of the Cardigan the 

 waters formerly passed from the lake Connecti- 

 cut into the valley of a stream which runniiiif 

 along the base of the Ragged mountain discharg- 

 ed itself into the Merrimack. Here a hole in the 

 rock, formed like the wells or holes upon the fulls 

 before described, some ten or twelve feet deep, 

 stands as indubitable evidence that a volume of 

 water passed over this ridge many, many ages 

 in succession. 



'• A little learning is a dangerous thing," 

 is a line quoted from an Englisli poet which I re- 

 member when a child to have written from the 

 top to the bottom of the page in labored in)ita- 

 tion of the copy set by the village school master. 

 I fear I shall tread beyond my depth if I attemjit 

 to connect the results of my own personal obser- 

 vation with those of the labors of men who have 

 distinguished themselves in their discoveries and 

 specidations ou the structure and formations of 

 the earth. The earth's crust, the only])art of our 

 planet accessible to human observation, is but i 

 comparatively small, portion of that mass of ma- 

 terial which underlays every thing beyond the 

 reach of man ; and although the earthquake and 

 the volcano have thrown above the surface mat- 

 ter from a greater depth than has been reached 

 by any inventions of man, yet are we unable even 

 to conjecture with any approach to certainty 

 what occupies the vast unexplored space near the 

 earth's centre, or to fathom the inscrutable ])ur- 

 poses of that Being by whom all tilings were 

 created : 

 " He who through vast immensity can pierce, 

 .See worlds on worlds compose one UuiTerse, 

 Observe how system into system runs, 

 What distant planets circle other suns. 

 What varied beings people every star, 

 Can tell why Heaven has made us as we are." 

 Since the commencement of the Christian 

 era, the labors of scientific men have been great- 

 ly obstructed by the supposed clashing of new 

 discoveries with the authenticity of Scripture 

 truth. The true theory of the Solar system was 

 kept fiom the possession of the world for a long 

 period by the authoritative inleiference of mo- 

 nastic institutions with tlie aid of the civil power. 

 And even within this age the most civilized and 

 intelligent and liberal Christians are slow to as- 

 sent to those gieat truths which go to fix the ori- 

 gin of the earth long anterior to the chronolojiy 

 derived by supposition from the Mosaic account. 

 Within a short space of time the great prejudice 

 seems to bo fast wearing away. Tlie old adage 

 that "Truth lies at the bottom of a well" is losing 

 its force ; and the idea that better conforms loan- 

 age of inquiry and intelligence is taking its place, 

 that Truth is "most potent where human leason is 

 left most free. Jn a simple excavation of the 

 earth the untotored peasant. 



Whose " soul proud science never taught to stray 

 Far as the solar walk or milky way," 

 may discover the evidence that long anterior to 

 the first account of man, the earth which now 

 yields him sustenance was at the bottom of great 

 waters which in the wear of lengthened ages 

 shaped its pebbles in their present roundness : he 

 will also see in the cliffs of the rended rocks 

 "demonstration strong as proof of lioly writ" of 

 the great convulsions that must have taken jilace, 

 not perhaps at that far back period when " the 

 earth was without form and void," but subse- 

 quent to the time when the spirit of God first 

 " moved upon the waters," and long before the 

 creation of man. To ray mind the first chapter 



of the Mosaic account of the world covers antl 

 includes every thing that the modern geologist 

 can desire ; and theie is developed in the succes- 

 sive discoveries and demonstrations of modern 

 science a harmony the more gratifying because 

 in beautifiil accordance with the great truths of 

 religion. 



1 have given you my opinion that the beds of 

 our rivers before the waters broke through to the 

 ocean \yere more deeply covered with the waters 



of a series of extended lakes. That the waters 

 have sometimes and at successive periods rece- 

 ded into deeper chasms of the earth is evident 

 from the present structure of the ground. At a 

 period of time long subsequent to a parting that 

 destroyed the level of the great lakes from the 

 Ontario westward flowing out the present falls of 

 Niagara, the shores of the Ontario lake must have 

 been bounded for ages by what is now the Ridge 

 road miming from the Genesee river to the mouth 

 of the Niagara below the falls. The banks upon 

 the Geneva and other minor lakes in New York, 

 leave a similar ridge showing a retrocession of the 

 waters. So do the banks of the Connecticut, the 

 Merrimack, and indeed almost every considera- 

 ble stream I have ever visited which passes a suc- 

 cession of falls on its way to the ocean. Gradu- 

 ally have the waters worn their way into deeper 

 beds of the earth : when obstructed by ledges of 

 rock they have sometimes found dieir way into a 

 different channel leaving traces which enable 

 to ascertain their former bed. 



Of those streams which have broken a nearer 

 way to the ocean, I have not noticed that 

 greater than all those of New England united 

 which carries the waters of the great lakes to the 

 ocean, the St. Lawrence. That river, like the 

 others, was but a series of lakes and l)ears evi 

 dence of having broken through a mountain range 

 below Quebec extending across the North Amer 

 ican continent fl'om Labrador or unknown re- 

 gions in the north-east to the south-west point of 

 the old thirteen United States of North America 

 The St. Lawrence, like the Niagara receding into 

 the mountain ridge from Lewiston, has the strong 

 marks of disruption which show that the land 

 was there upon an even level long befor»the w 

 lers broke tlirough and flowed in their present 

 channel. 



Whether the great change which has taken 

 place in that tract of land and water was sudden 

 or gradual, we have not the present means of as- 

 certaining. A vast volume of water has fallen 

 away in tlie comse of time. A vast volume re- 

 mains in the inland seas at an elevation five or six 

 hundred feet above the level of the country be 

 low. We see in various parts of New England 

 among the hills fresli meadows vvliich are the 

 beds of former lakes. 



Long Pond, situated in the townships of Glo- 

 ver and Greensborough in the State of Vermont 

 about one and a half miles long and half a mile 

 wide, formerly discharged its waters to the south, 

 forming one of the head branches of the Lamoille 

 river which runs into Lake Champlain. In the 

 month of June, 1810, a number of persons went 

 to this pond for the purpose of opening an outlet 

 to the north into the Barton river which dischar- 

 ges itself through the lake Memphremagog and 

 the St. Francois river into the St. Lawrence, that 

 the mills below might receive an additional sup- 

 ply of water. The northern barrier of the pond 

 consisted entirely of quicksand, excepting an in- 

 crustation of clay next to the water ; so that the 

 small channel rapi<lly extended, the barrier being 

 unequal to the support of the incumbent mass of 

 water. The whole pond immediately took a 

 northerly course, and the valley below was in- 

 stantly inundated^ The deluge advanced like a 

 wall of waters sixty or seventy feet in height and 

 about twenty rods wide : it levelled the forests 

 and the hills, filled up the valleys, and swept off 

 mills, houses, barns, fences, cattle, horses, every 

 thing as it passed for more than ten miles : among 

 other things a rock supposed, to weigh one hun- 

 dred tons was removed half a mile from its bed. 

 The waters of the pond reached the lake below, 

 a distance of twenty-seven miles, in about six 

 hours. In the place of this pond there is now 

 only a small rivulet ; and along the channel wliich 

 is Vi7 feet below the surftice of the pond runs the 

 road which ;)asses from south to north : a [lart of 

 the original pond is cultivated, and a part over- 

 grown with wild grass and bushes. 



In the immense power of this small body of 

 water we may witness a miniature display of 

 what might be the overwhelming effect of larger 

 bodies of water forcing themselves to a level. 

 Suppose in the convulsions of some earthquake, 

 from the upheaving of some volcano, or even 

 from some trivial cause such as the digging of a 

 simple channel by human means, the waters of 

 the great lakes bearing with immense weight 

 should break through their barriers and discharge 

 themselves upon the country below as siuddenly 



Glover, would the inundation of 

 States at a point below that of 



as the pond 

 the whole es 



the level of the lakes, be an event more strange 

 than the inundation which drowned out every 

 thing that had not time to escape to the higher 

 mountains from the sudden retrocession of a bo- 

 dy of water of very limited extent.' In the 

 course of events, it is no more unnatural that ter- 

 ritories of great extent should be overwhelmed 

 by the rushing in of waters, than that other dis- 

 tricts should be swallowed up by earthquakes. 



The volcanic regions of the globe are distinctly 

 marked: the convulsions continue until the ma- 

 terial with which they operate is exhausted. The 

 high mountains of the known world are the cre- 

 ation of that interior expansive power which ex- 

 ists in the bosom of the earth and which is "en- 

 erated by some peculiar combination of tlie^ele- 

 ments. A different combination creates first the 

 clouds tliat distil the drops of rain in gentle show- 

 ers which cause the spring of rich vegetation 



then the more severe explosion, the thunder and 

 lightning which clears the air of the miasma that 

 produces disease— and then the still more .severe 

 hurricane which uproots trees and throws rocks 

 from their beds, and desolates wherever it strikes. 

 The power of an Almighty Arm is no less dis- 

 played in the common events of our seasons, in 

 the gentle rain, the lightning and storm and the 

 whirlwind, than in the volcano and earthquake 

 which upheave mountains, or sink whole districts 

 of country and their inhabitants, so that " the 

 places which now know them, shall know th«m 

 no more forever." 



There is evidence throughout the whole face 

 of our country that, long since the formation of 

 our mountains, a deluge similar to that which 

 swept down the valley of Vermont with power 

 magnified in proportion to its wider extent has 

 swept from north to south. Geologists are of 

 opinion that this deluge was prior to the exist- 

 ence of man and of course prior to the Noah- 

 chian deluge of which we have an account in the 

 scriptures. The evidence of this deluge is every 

 where seen in the removal of rocks from their 

 places in a southerly direction to a very consid- 

 erable distance from their original beds : these 

 may he found in various parts of the country. If 

 the small volume of water in a Vermont pond 

 could remove for the distance of half a mile a 

 rock of the weight of one hundred tons, how ex- 

 traordinary would be the removal of rocks often 

 times the size a hundred times that distance by 

 such a power as the mass of waters resting on 

 the north-west American lakes six hundred feet 

 above the level of Ihe country below,' 



There is a high ridge of mountains in the Uni- 

 ted States running from the north-east to the 

 south-west, which were probably in former times 

 the great barrier to tlie waters, the falling away 

 of which we have noticed. The rivers I have 

 noted, the Hudson, the Connecticut, the Merri- 

 mack, &c., and even the St. Lawrence, as break- 

 ing through these mountain barriers to the ocean. 

 May there not be ground for the conjecture that 

 some of these barriere were carried away at the 

 time when the great rush of waters from the 

 North moved the rocks from tlie places in which 

 they had long rested .' 



The highest mountains within the known lim- 

 its of the old thirteen United States are the clus- 

 ter in New Hampshire called the White Moun- 

 tains. These mountains are supposed to he older 

 than any of the ranges of high mountains in Eu- 

 rope: Mont Blanc and Mont St. Bernard may 

 peer above them and reach their tops beyond the 

 line of perpetual congelation ; but Mount Wash- 

 ington had been thousands of years in existence 

 before the internal fires upheaved the European 

 Alps. 



I rejoice to have lived so long as to arrive at 

 the conviction that no part of the world has been 

 created in vain. Even the convulsions which 

 have rent tne earth from the surface to its centre 

 have tended towards the enjoyment of man ; for 

 let us suppose that no volcanoes had thrown up 

 the mountains, that the stiata of the remote as 

 well as of the more recent periods had retained 

 their horizontal positions, the minerals so valua- 

 ble for our use would have been unknown : the 

 rocks w hich we most admire would have forefer 

 remained in their beds buried deeper than the 

 ken of mortals could fathom; the silver and gold, 

 and what is more useful and valuable the iron 

 which is distributed in veins through the super- 



