176 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Let me say here, that it is these accumulations of loose 

 materials that constitute, all over the Northern States, the soil. 

 It is this material, more or less altered by vegetation, it is this 

 material, ploughed and worked by man, which has become the 

 basis of our agricultural pursuits. It is that material, the 

 origin of which we must now- try to explain ; and it is the 

 arrangement of that material which we must seek to understand 

 fully, in order to appreciate why there is more gravel or more 

 quartz in one region than another ; why the soil is poorer in 

 one tract of country than another. You will see, in the end, 

 that these differences arise from the manner in which these 

 materials have been brought down from more northern regions. 

 Now, let me state, further, that always, wherever the underlying 

 rock has not sustained extensive alterations by exposure to 

 atmospheric agencies, the surface is polished, and it is so polished 

 that it shines like a marble mantel-piece which has been worked 

 to the height of polish that it can receive ; and upon that pol- 

 ished surface is engraved a system of lines which are always 

 straight, and always running north and south, deviating some- 

 what to the west ; and not only scratches and thin lines, but 

 grooves and furrows, sometimes very extensive and broad, which 

 have worked quite deeply into the solid rock. This is the basis 

 on which these loose materials rest, and there can be, at first 

 sight, little doubt that the cause which transported these 

 loose materials is also the cause which has polished, scratched, 

 grooved and furrowed the underlying rock ; that these 

 phenomena go together, and that the same cause has at the 

 same time transported those huge boulders which rest on the 

 whole, and which are still uncovered. Your cause must, there- 

 fore, work in a very strange manner. It must touch the 

 bottom, and be powerful enough to abrade it, to polish it, and, 

 while polishing it, to groove and scratch it. It must, at the 

 same time, be able to turn this curious mixture of loose mate- 

 rials over, to be polished and scratched, on the other side ; and . 

 it must be of such a character that at the same time it carries 

 forward, on the vet-y summit, and nowhere else, huge angular 

 materials. Now, such a cause is not known to act anywhere in 

 the regions where drift is found now. The drift is the result of 

 the action of a cause which has passed by, at least, within the 

 limits within which it is observed ; and the question arises 



