30 On Bowlders and Rolled Stoneti. 



miles from the meeting-house in Lyme, and about thirteen 

 miles from Dartmouth College After that, it is every- 

 where seen in blocks, in rounded rocks, as well as very of- 

 ten in place. As you travel eastward, the land rises pretty 

 rapidly, and at every step there are certain marks of me- 

 chanical agency excepting of course the rocks in place. 

 On leaving a considerable branch of the Mascomy river in 

 the Eastern part of Canaan, the road between two moun- 

 tains leads up a very small stream whose source is in the 

 western part of Grafton In following up this little brook 

 you observe large hills of gravel and of sand, apparently the 

 residuum of what once filled this valley to the depth of sev- 

 enty or eighty feet. When you arrive at the source :>f this 

 stream, you have to ascend a steep hill of perfectly rounded 

 gravel to the height of from sixty to eighty feet and then 

 pass on a level, about 30 feet to a smooth coarse grained 

 granite in place. 



Here is the height of land between the Connecticut and 

 Merrimack rivers, and it is probably more than one thousand 

 feet higher than those rivers. On either side and close by, 

 are two mountains running sail parallel with the road, which 

 are from five to eleven hundred feet higher than the height 

 of land already mentioned. In ascending this hill of gravel, 

 and passing on to this evidently smooth water-worn surface of 

 granite, there was such a perfect resemblance between this 

 deposite of gravel behind the rock and what I had often 

 known in streams, that I was at once fully impressed with 

 the belief that this gravel must have been deposited by a 

 current of water. The rocks exhibited every appearance 

 of having been much worn by water, the corners of those 

 in place being perfectly rpunded, and all the low places be- 

 tween the rocks for about two hundred yards were full of 

 gravel, and no more than full. About forty or fifty feet 

 from the surface of this smooth rock, the waters from this 

 side flow rapidly to the Merrimack river Still I could not 

 doubt that the very gravel which I saw on the west side, as 

 well as that which filled all the low places on the rocks 

 had been rounded on the rock or near it, and that the 

 rocks by the same process had been much worn. I 

 concluded that nothing but the movement of the ocean 

 itself through this valley eould ever have produced these 

 effects. 



