258 Dr. Hitchcock on some Phenomena of Drift. 
Art. Il1L.— Description of a Singular Case of the Dispersion of 
Blocks of Stone connected with Drift, in Berkshire County, 
Massachusetts ; by Epwarp Hireucocr, LL. D., President of 
Amherst College. 
[Read before the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, at Washing- 
ton, May, 1844.] 
Tue precipitous ridges and deep vallies of western Massachu- 
setts may be regarded as classic ground on the subject of drift. 
The force by which the bowlders were dispersed and the rocks 
smoothed and striated, swept over those ridges in an oblique di- 
rection; and we are there presented with much striking evidence 
how independent was this force of existing agencies and of the 
present configuration of the surface. The leading facts respecting 
the drift of that region, I have presented in my Final Report on 
the Geology of Massachusetts. But within the past year I have 
been invited by Dr. S. Reid, of Richmond in Berkshire County, 
—himself a zealous naturalist,—to examine a very curious case 
of transported blocks, found in that town and the adjoining ones; 
and it is so different from any case which | have met with, that 
I am anxious to bring it to the notice of geologists. For anom- 
alous cases in natural history sometimes reveal to us a general law 
that governs a large class of phenomena, or rather they lead 
us toa wider induction than we had made from the ordinary 
- facts. . 
I wish first to mention, that Dr. Reid has given some account 
of this case in the Berkshire F'armer, a newspaper published in 
Lenox. But as he did not go into those details which give the 
case an important aspect in relation to prevailing theories of drift, 
I shall attempt to supply that deficiency. 
As one passes a few rods west of Dr. Reid’s residence, and 
about half a mile northeast of Richmond meeting-house, he will 
see, on either side of the road, numerous angular blocks of stone, 
of a character quite different from the rock in place, which is 
limestone. In general the fields are quite free from loose blocks. 
But on looking southeasterly at this spot, he will see a well 
marked train of blocks, perhaps thirty or forty rods wide. He 
may be surprised to see how distinct are the limits of this train. 
But if he do not follow it further, he will not probably regard it 
