KATAHDIN SYSTEM. 113 



found not far to the north. , Yet there has ]3hiinly been a transportation 

 southward along the line of the osar greater than the distance traveled by 

 the till. Thus, north of Enfield the osar consists chiefly of slate. It there 

 crosses a small granite area. The granite immediately appears in the ridge, 

 and continues to be largely represented in it for 10 or 15 miles after reenter- 

 ing the slate region, more abundant apparently than iii the till over the 

 slate area. Near Morrison Pond the osar again leaves the slate area and 

 enters the great granite area extending northeast from Orland on the 

 Penobscot Bay nearly all the way to Bay Chalevir. For several miles after 

 entering the granite the osar contains more slate than the till. As a rough 

 estimate, I compute that the stones of the osar traveled from 5 to 10 miles 

 farther than those of the till. 



For most of its course the Katahdin osar is closely guarded by the 

 wilderness. Whoever loves the large, generous works of nature, unspoiled 

 by the hand of man, will find much to his taste in following this osar. A 

 casual crossing of the system is insufficient for adequate appreciation. One 

 needs to follow it for 100 miles or more in order to see what a grand geo- 

 logical construction it is. As the mighty rampart stretches away before 

 him day after day, the explorer becomes intensely interested in watching 

 its varying developments. Railway embankments become insignificant in 

 comparison with it. It is perhaps most beautiful in the midst of the dark, 

 silent wilderness, gray with lichens. Its vegetation is interesting all the 

 way from Thoreau's horseback, covered with ferns; past days and days of 

 white birch and poplar growth; past the hemlock thickets of the high pin- 

 nacles or so-called "mountains" of Greenbush, where Linntea and Chiogenes 

 vie with pipsissewa and Epigsea in decorating the huge piles of gravel; past 

 the checkerberry plains and mosses of Greenfield and the kame-inclosed 

 sphagnoiis swamps of the Sunk-haze wilderness, lovely with calopogon, 

 ■ Pogonia, and Arethusa ; and the interest keejDS up even to the great blue- 

 berry plains of Deblois and Columbia, and to the drosera-shining sjDruce 

 swamps which cover the unsightliness of the cobbles, bowlderets, and 

 rounded bowlders of the great plains near Rocky Pond. 



Not less interesting are its topographical relations. By the time one 

 has seen the osar crossing transversely the Penobscot River twice and the 

 valleys of three streams to their source, then crossing divides and descend- 

 ing the valleys of the same number of streams flowing in the opposite 



MON XXXIV 8 



