153 Repaints on the Geology of the State of Maine. 



country, and our young men ought to possess advantages so desirable and 

 important for their welfare and prosperity. It is evident that small schools 

 will do no good, since they vi^ould not be sufficiently well endowed to 

 command the services of scientific teachers, and hence if the attempt is 

 made, let there be one large and well endowed agricultural college in 

 each State, connected, if found practicable, with the usual classical insti- 

 tutions, and forming a branch of each university. Many who do not de- 

 sire to spend years in the study of Latin and Greek authors, are still anx- 

 ious to learn the elements of those sciences which appertain to their pro- 

 fessions, and I have not the least doubt, that a well ordered and scientific 

 agricultural institute would prove one of the most popular and useful 

 schools in the country. In such a college, mathematics, drawing, sur- 

 veying, mechanics, architecture, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, zoology 

 and the practical arts, each in their several departments, might be taught 

 by study and lecture, while every practical operation should be learned by 

 actual practice." 



The subject of diluvial phenomena is frequently alluded to in 

 the pages of these reports, and the facts stated are of the most 

 positive and convincing nature, tending to confirm the opinion 

 long entertained, and of which the evidences in other parts of our 

 country are numerous, that a mighty and devastating current of 

 water has swept over the surface of this continent from the north-' 

 west, carrying with it large masses of rock, scooping out vallies, 

 and leaving parallel furrows upon the sides of mountains.* For 

 a statement of these facts, of which we have space to give only 

 a part, we would refer our readers to Dr. Jackson's second report, 

 page 148. He observes, 



" In various sections of this report may be seen recorded the proofs of 

 diluvial transportation of rocks, far from their parent beds, and we have 

 every reason to believe, that this removal was effected by a tremendous 

 current of water, that swept over the State from the north 15^ west, to 

 the south 15° east, and we have adduced in testimony, that such was the 

 direction of that current, numerous grooves, furrows or scratches upon 

 the surface of the solid rocks, in place, and have shown conclusively, that 

 the rocks which we find thus transported, proved to be portions of ledges 



* The opinion that boulders generally have been transported by ordinary or 

 tidal currents whilst attached to masses of ice, and not by one general catastrophe, 

 seems now no longer tenable ; De la Beche, more satisfactorily, we think, than 

 any other writer, has solved the problem of their occurrence, and established the 

 truth of Prof. Buckland's hypothesis. See his Geological Man'ial ; also Hitch- 

 cock's Report on the Geology of Massachusetts, and the Reports on the Geologi- 

 cal survey of New York. 



