Geology, ^c. of the Connecticut. 1 ] 



for in general, the granite along the Connecticut appears 

 much lowe,than the neighbouring rocks, such as gneiss and 

 mica slate. No person who examines the East-Haven 

 granite, or that running through the Leverett, or even the 

 South Hampton deposit, will doubt that some powerful 

 agent has swept away an immense mass of superincumbent 

 rocks of some description or other. Whether this was a 

 primeval northeasterly current as Mr. Hayden maintains, I 

 shall not undertake to decide. Be it, however, what it may 

 have been, wherever it has acted powerfully we rnay ex- 

 pect to find the granite laid bare. If these remarks are 

 correct, we need not be surprised to find this rock any 

 where, even if we cannot make it form any thing like con- 

 tinuous ranges, and perhaps some of those small masses of 

 granite, which every one who has examined New- Eng- 

 land knows, appear so frequently, and which being sur- 

 rounded by gneiss or mica slate, we are apt to refer to beds 

 or veins may, after all, be the top of a projection of the 

 nucleus of the globe vvhicli the abrading agent has laid 

 bare. 



Bellows Falls Granite. 



This is of quite limited extent; but the interesting na- 

 ture of the spot where it occurs induced me to colour it and 

 notice it thus particularly. Fall mountain on the east bank 

 of the Connecticut at Bellows Falls, consists of a coarse, 

 not very perfectly stratified mica slate. At its western foot 

 in the bank of the river, the stratification becomes less dis- 

 tinct, and is at length, about the middle of the stream, en- 

 tirely lost; and the rock becomes an imperfect granite. In 

 other words, there is a graduation from the mica slate into 

 the granite. In the western bank, in the village, the char- 

 acters of the granite are more decided; though even here, 

 I should have no hesitation in calling it a sienitic granite, 

 did it contain any hornblende ; but I could discover none. 

 The mica is black and abundant, thus giving the rock a sie- 

 nitic aspect ; and it is also traced by veins of felspar and 

 granite like the sienitic granite of Noriham.pton and Belcher- 

 town, to be described hereafter. The ingredients of this 

 rock are arranged when viewed on a small scale somewhat 

 in distinct layers ; hut when regarded as a vi'hole, I never 



