MUSEUM OF COMPAKATIVE Z05lOGY. 



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Hill in Augusta and Watcrville, I remember but five small spots where 

 ock in situ rises to the surface. Upon the adjoining flirms a few others 

 may be observed. All are little patches of outcropping strata. Goin'^ 

 nortliward from Augusta, wherever the strata are harder tlian usual 

 they rise into hills. At Watcrville, while fissile slates occupy the low 

 grounds, they lose the slaty structure and pass into hard schists in sev- 

 ei-al high hills, one of which presents a bold, precipitous face. The 

 numerical proportion of such hills increases farther north, tdl, south and 

 cast of Mooschcad Lake, so far as examination has been made, hills and 

 mountains of schist far outnumber those comjiosed of granite. Isolated 

 granite lulls occasionally rise in districts of slates and schists, but 

 nowhere is anything to be found that can be termed a granite district. 

 Judging from the foregoing facts and instances, we must think, until 

 stronger proof to the contrary is produced than at present appears, that 

 the country south of Ktaadn, to and beyond the Joe Merry Lakes, is 

 part of the great region of stratified rocks which surrounds it on all sides. 

 On such an hypothesis, the presence of Joe Merry Mountain where it is 

 a mass of schist — is comprehensible; but how shall it be accounted for 

 if supposed to ris^ out of a granite district 1 



On arriving at the mouth of the stream where the trail from the river 

 to the summit of Ktaadn begins, it had been my purpose, before making 

 the ascent of the mountain, to run up the Penobscot twelve miles far- 

 ther, to Ripogenus Portage, upon which occurs the border line between 

 the granite and the stratified rocks in that direction. But lack of water 

 in the river, and its obstruction by great gatherings of logs, formidable 

 enough below and known to be worse above, made further boating 



impracticable. The Ilipogcnus trip was therefore unwillingly relin- 

 quished. 



Of the northwestern portion of the so-called granite district, T can 

 speak, then, only from notes and recollections of a canoe excursion made 

 in 1871 from Mooschcad Lake downward. They enable me to say, how- 

 ever, that the river's course, from the Ripogenus Gorge to Sourdnahunk 

 Falls, lies chiefly among hills. Those on the north skirt closely the 

 left bank of the river, and arc foot-hills of the Sourdnahunk Mountains, 

 which are a little beyond. The hills are frequently precipitous, present- 

 ing a frontage of granite cliffs. Except at the Ambajcmackomus Falls, 

 where the river plunges eight or ten feet over a shelf of granite, I have 

 no distinct remembrance of ledges in the channel, which is thickly 

 strewn with granite bowlders. But the character of the heights adja- 

 cent upon the left leaves no room for doubt that, between the limits 



