Description of a Slide on Mount Lafayette, N. H. 765 
was not so. The rock in place was smoothed, but not striated ; 
except in a few places, perhaps, in the slightest manner. The 
fundamental rock passed over, is gneiss, but it is traversed occa- 
sionally by veins of granite, and towards the upper part by 
dykes of trap several rods wide. They are such rocks, indeed, 
as in various places retain distinct markings of the drift action. 
I conclude, therefore, that the drift agency must have been some- 
What different from that which produced this slide. 
_ The beds of detritus, produced along this slide, are so closely 
like those of glacier origin, that we may call them moraines. 
They are larger and more distinct than I have seen on any other 
slide. All along the borders of the ravine, are ridges of blocks, 
gravel, and sand, sometimes twenty feet high, lying in as much 
confusion as is possible, and making it difficult, and even danger- 
ous, to go into, or out of, the ravine over the loose and crumbling 
tidges. At the lower end of the slide is a large terminal moraine, 
by which the river has been forced, to seek a new channel. This 
terminal moraine is in fact double, that is, an old moraine lies in 
advance of that produced by the slide of 1850. The blocks of 
the two being easily distinguished by the appearance of recent of 
are almost precisely what they would be, if a glacier in one of 
ing it, I had no doubt that the slide was produced by the advance 
of a mass of ice. Yet I noticed that in some places, the lateral 
moraine was driven in among the trees, without affecting them, 
and subsequently I learned, that the slide took place in June, 
1850, in consequence of a powerful shower of rain. 
In some places near the bed of the slide, I noticed the stumps 
of trees, perhaps six inches diameter, that had been broken off by 
the descending mass. 
© Were so struck with the perfection of these moraines, that 
We ventured to call this hitherto nameless stream, Moraine 
Brook ; and we entered it as such on the register at the hotel. 
If any Wish to get an idea of the moraines of the Alps without 
the glaciers, I would advise them to visit this spot. ie oat 
A little below the terminal moraine, we found springs issuing, 
strongly impregnated with iron, which, with a little fitting up, 
might be serviceable to the numerous visitors of the Franconia 
» Where so many objects of interest are clustered together. 
Some of the trap that has been denuded by this slide, is co- 
lumnar. 1 saw none such in place, but one or two very distinct 
examples of hexagonal joints lay along the bed of the stream. 
T learnt at the hotel that Moraine brook lies at the best possible 
route for a horse-path, to the summit of La Fayette. No such 
Path now exists; but I understood it to be the intentions of the 
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