THEOKY. 181 



glyphics of nature. The principal, by his reasonings upon the facts of drift, may be said 

 to have plunged the whole State under water, and it will be our province to restore it 

 again to the day light, especially as he has shown it to have commenced to rise. We 

 shall consider the submersion of the continent as a fixed fact, and shall therefore make 

 no attempts to prove it formally. Our province will be to state how the beaches, &c. 

 were formed by the action of oceanic and fluviatile agencies during the upward movement. 

 A very general statement of our theory is the following : Drift agencies, when the 

 continent was sinking, while at its greatest depth, and while rising 2,400 feet, rounded, 

 scratched, and polished the ledges and spread the materials thus derived over the bed of 

 the ocean. These materials would be more or less angular, crushed though somewhat 

 rounded ; and for the most part without well marked lines of stratification. The great 

 icebergs which had been sweeping over the country, at the opening of the beach period 

 would be stranded ; and the high hills capped by drift accumulations would just show 

 their heads above the water. The action of the water would wash the drift detritus, 

 rounding the fragments, at first imperfectly, sorting the materials and arranging them 

 into strata, in limited localities. These constitute the highest beaches. A gradual rise 

 of the continent would show beaches at lower levels, while over the lower hills icebergs 

 would still be grating and scarring. 



Next, we suppose the land to have risen so much that the great valleys are seen in 

 outline ; small tributaries bring their deposits of gravel and sand into the larger valleys, 

 deriving them from the drift and beaches, and these greatly modifying the character of 

 the drift. These constitute the higher terraces. As the continent continued to rise, the 

 lower terraces would be formed from the ruins of drift, beaches and older 'terraces. In 

 consequence of the equable rise, the terraces are found at various levels : not even being 

 of the same height on both sides of the same valley, and the lower ones, exceedingly 

 variable in number. The action of tributaries upon the great terraces of the large 

 streams would form numerous small terraces from them, from six to ten or more in 

 number. In other words, the gradual drainage of the continent has produced all the 

 multiplied and various phenomena of surface geology, mostly from the materials broken 

 off from the ledges by icebergs, glaciers, etc. We will trace the progress of these 

 phenomena more at length, endeavoring to establish certain points and drawing from 

 them appropriate conclusions. 



PEEIOD OF BEACHES AND OLDER SEA BOTTOMS. 



1. All alluvial beaches, terraces, sea bottoms, etc., lie above the coarse unstratified and 

 unmodified drift, as well as above striated, grooved and embossed ledges connected with 

 drift. We may specify cases of this sort in the Winooski valley, where terraces were 

 found overlying striae. It is evident, hence, that the striae were formed before the terraces 

 were deposited. We .would not assert that no drift shows evidence of stratification. It is 

 common to find limited beds of sand, clay and gravel in the midst of coarse materials, 

 and sometimes we find masses of coarse irregular detritus and scattered blocks, over 

 deposits that are distinctly sorted and stratified. But as a general fact, the sorted and 

 stratified materials lie above the drift. Indeed it is not easy in every case to draw an 

 exact line between the unmodified drift and the modified accumulations. They pass into 

 each other by insensible gradations. 



