INTERPRETATION OF LAND FORMS 135 



width, depth, and direction, are as regular as if they had been 

 cut out by a grooving plane. This, running water could not 

 effect, nor could its operation have produced that glassy smooth- 

 ness, which, in many parts, it still retains." 



Hayes and also Conrad expressed similar views in the 

 Journal 16 years later. 



The idea that ice was in some way concerned with the 

 transportation of drift has had a curious history. The 

 first unequivocal statement, based on reading and keen 

 observation, was made in the Journal by Dobson in 

 1826 : 40 



' ' I have had occasion to dig up a great number of bowlders, of 

 red sandstone, and of the conglomerate kind, in erecting a cotton 

 manufactory; and it was not uncommon to find them worn 

 smooth on the under side, as if done by their having been 

 dragged over rocks and gravelly earth, in one steady position. 

 On examination, they exhibit scratches and furrows on the 

 abraded part; and if among the minerals composing the rock, 

 there happened to be pebbles of feldspar, or quartz, (which was 

 not uncommon,) they usually appeared not to be worn so much 

 as the rest of the stone, preserving their more tender parts in a 

 ridge, extending some inches. When several of these pebbles 

 happen to be in one block, the preserved ridges were on the same 

 side of the pebbles, so that it is easy to determine which part of 

 the stone moved forward, in the act of wearing. 



These bowlders are found, not only on the surface, but I have 

 discovered them a number of feet deep, in the earth, in the hard 

 compound of clay, sand, and gravel. . . . 



I think we cannot account for these appearances, unless we 

 call in the aid of ice along with water, and that they have been 

 worn by being suspended and carried in ice, over rocks and 

 earth, under water. ' ' 



In Dobson 's day the hypothesis of " gigantic floods," 

 "debacles," "resistless world-wide currents," was so 

 firmly entrenched that the voice of the observant layman 

 found no hearers, and a letter from Dobson to Hitchcock 

 written in 1837 and containing additional evidence and 

 argument remained unpublished until Murchison, in 

 1842, 41 paid his respects to the remarkable work of a 

 remarkable man.* 



* Peter Dobson (1784-1878) came to this country from Preston, England, 

 in 1809 and established a cotton factory at Vernon, Conn. 



