ASCUTNEY. 225 



and have veins also cutting through their own masses, so as only a fused rock could do. 

 Near the south part of the State we have Black Mountain, which, however, is not very 

 high. But Ascutney shoots up 3320 feet above the ocean, and about 3000 feet above the 

 river. Further north are many other deposits of granite, increasing in quantity towards 

 the northeast part of the State. But we believe (although we have not been able to 

 measure the heights of some of them in theunsettled regions of Essex county) that Ascut- 

 ney peers above all the rest, and we will let this stand as a representative of the whole. 



The predominant rock in this mountain is syenite, with very little hornblende, however, 

 and hence it often passes into a highly feldspathic granite, and sometimes into porphyry, 

 with a crystalline and not a compact base. Sometimes we find large and irregular veins 

 of granite, penetrating the syenite in such a manner that large surfaces look like breccia. 

 Indeed, Ave often see concretionary masses, only a few inches across, scattered through the 

 granite. Such facts can be explained only by fusion. 



The strata all around the mountain have a strike somewhat east of north, and a large 

 easterly dip, and they do not seem to have been much disturbed by the elevation of the 

 mountain ; though on the west side we found them sometimes horizontal, and some- 

 times perpendicular, where they are in immediate contact with the granite; and all around 

 the mountain, even at considerable distance, they are a good deal indurated. At first 

 view it seems as if the mountain was a huge bed in mica schist and gneiss ; but we think 

 that it does in fact cut across the strata, nearly at right angles ; having, however, dis- 

 turbed them so little that they abut against the north and south sides with almost 

 unaltered dip and strike. It may be difficult to conceive how such a mass of melted rocks, 

 several miles in diameter, should be produced among the strata without great disturbance. 

 But the old and common idea that granite usually forms the axis of a mountain, and 

 that its protrusion has thrown up the strata on opposite sides so that they dip in contrary 

 directions, is beginning to be regarded as a hasty generalization. Our experience, we 

 confess, has scarcely made us acquainted with a single case of this kind. But everywhere 

 the granite seems to have merely partaken of the general elevatory movement, and not to 

 have been itself the cause of it ; so that often, as at Ascutney and many other places in 

 Vermont, the stratified rocks appear to pass under the granite, judging from their dip 

 at a short distance. But wherever we have seen the junction of the two rocks on the west 

 side of Ascutney, we find so much of disturbance and change of dip for a short distance, 

 as to doubt whether the stratified do pass under the unstratified, and the same is true in 

 the Stamford and Pownal granite. 



Where granite occurs in interstratified beds in stratified rocks, we may generally 

 regard it as simply a metamorphosis of those rocks. But when the metamorphosis is so 

 complete as not only to obliterate every trace of stratification, but also to send the melted 

 matter into fissures so as to form veins, we may be sure that the heat was great enough 

 to produce entire fusion, and therefore such a rock as we might found an argument upon. 

 Now we have ascertained the curious and interesting fact, that at least a part, and 

 perhaps all of Ascutney, was formed by the melting down of a coarse breccia, no longer 

 found in the region, save the small portion that remains unmelted as a coating of the 

 granite of Little Ascutney, without an intervening seam. The facts on the subject will 

 be detailed in another part of this Report. 



