AMERICAN GEOLOGY DECADE OF 1840-1849. 



393 



Sketch of Zadock 

 Thompson. 



that when at one time interrupted by his clerk with an inquiry as to 

 the prediction that should be made in the forthcoming issue for the 

 weather for July, he replied somewhat testily. "Say 

 'Snow about this time.'" So it stood in the printed 

 almanacs, as issued from the press, and, to the aston- 

 ishment of all, including both printer and author, snow did fall in 

 Vermont that year in the month of July. 



The industry of the man was remarkable. He graduated from the 

 University of Vermont at the age of 27. He published an arithme- 

 tic, a geography and map of Canada for use in the common schools; 

 became in 1832 editor of the Green Mountain 

 Repository; wrote a history of Vermont, 

 which appeared the same 3 r ear ; studied theol- 

 og}', and took deacon's orders in the Protes- 

 tant Episcopal Church in 1836. He preached 

 for a time and returned once more to his 

 book writing, first publishing in three vol- 

 umes a Natural, Civil, and Statistical History 

 of Vermont; then a text-book on the Geol- 

 ogy and Geography of Vermont; finally 

 becoming an assistant to Professor Adams 

 on the State survey in 1845, when his geo- 

 logical work really began. 



■"Tall, angular, of a very quiet and sedate. 

 yet very pleasant, manner, a man of most 

 amiable and sweet temper, loved by all who knew him, and respected for 

 his sound sense and accurate judgment.' 1 Such is the picture given us 

 of him, who certainly was one of the most remarkable men of his times 

 although his name may not stand the highest in the annals of geology. 



Under the caption of " Description of a singular case of dispersion 

 of blocks of stone connected with the drift in Berkshire County, 

 Massachusetts," Dr. Edward Hitchcock described in the American 

 Hitchcock's Journal of Science for 1815 a remarkable train of gla- 



RfchmondBowider cial bowlders extending from Fry's Hill in the Canaan 

 Train, i84s. Mountains, of New York, southeasterly into Massa- 



chusetts for a distance of some 15 or 20 miles. 



The lithological nature of the bowlders was such that the}' could all 

 be traced to a common source, though described as forming three 

 somewhat meandering trains extending from Fry's Hill above men- 

 tioned, through the adjoining valley, and upward over an elevation of 

 800 feet at the State line, across the Richmond Valley and over Len- 

 nox Mountain, 600 feet in height, to and over Beartown Mountain, 

 1,000 feet in height. 



Naturally, so striking a phenomenon excited investigation, and. 

 naturally, too, Doctor Hitchcock, in the then existing condition of 



Fig. 38.— Zadock Thompson. 



