Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 133 



Taconic ranges and Lenox mountain to Beantown mountain. They 

 are a variety of talcose slate, which can be traced directly to a moun- 

 tain in Canaan, New York, beyond which they are not to be found. 

 Their number is very great, and they vary in size from that of two or 

 three feet to blocks which weigh more than thirteen hundred tons. 

 They are not at all rounded on their edges, and therefore must have 

 been carried, not driven, pellmell along the uneven suface. These 

 trains, especially one of them, are remarkably straight and well defined, 

 looking as if artificially strewed over the surface ; for they are confined 

 to the surface, and do not mix with the rounded drift beneath. At one 

 point the general course of the train is changed from east 34° south to 

 east 56° south. They were first pointed out to Prof. H. by Dr. S. Reid, 

 of Richmond. 



Only one case at all analogous has fallen under the Professor's notice, 

 and that is described by Mr. Darwin, in the Falkland Islands. Vast 

 quantities of blocks are there strewed along the valleys, so as to form 

 "streams of stones." But they lie in the bottom of the valleys, or in 

 the lowest places along their track, and therefore seem to have been 

 produced in a different manner from those in Berkshire, which pass ob- 

 liquely across ridges from four hundred to seven hundred feet high. 



The Professor thought that this case could not be explained by any of 

 the prevailing theories of drift. It seemed to him absurd to imagine 

 that currents of water, however violent, could have thus strewed in a 

 right line so various a train of blocks not at all rounded. Icebergs 

 could not have done the work much better : since a multitude of suc- 

 cessive ones must pass over the same spot and along the same line. 

 The trains do indeed resemble the medial moraines of glaciers, and 

 the trains transported by packed ice on large rivers. But it seemed 

 hardly possible to conceive how either a glacier or a river could ever 

 have existed in this region. The case, however, is an instructive one, 

 and forms one of the phenomena of drift, which the theorist must ex- 

 plain, or his theory will not stand. 



A very interesting and extended discussion followed on the sub- 

 ject of "Drift," (which occupied the remainder of the evening,) 

 between Prof. Johnson, Profs. H. D. and W. B. Rogers, Lieut. 

 Maury, Mr. Redfield, Mr. Tuomey, Mr. Hall, Dr. King and 

 Mr. Hayes. On motion, it was — 



Resolved, That the members of the Association tender to Dr. Locke., 

 their chairman, their sincere thanks for the zealous manner in which he 

 has presided at their deliberations during this session. 



Resolved., That the members of this Association deeply lament the 

 loss by death during the past year of their esteemed associates, Mr. 

 Nicollet and Prof. Hall 



