286 Deerjield Disruption. 



through the fields of imagination, invoking the poetic muse, 

 but addressed myself chiefly 



" To him who soars on golden -wing, 

 Guiding his fiery-wheeled throne, 

 The cherub contemplation." 



Art. XIII. On a singular Disruption of the Ground, ap- 

 parently hy Frost, in Letters from Edward Hitchcock, 

 A.M. Principal of Deerjield Academy. 



(With a Plate.) 



To the Editor of the American Journal of Science, 4'C. 



Sir, 



J. HAVE lately examined a singular disruption in the earUi. 

 discovered a few days since in the northerly part of an exten- 

 sive meadow in this town, about ten rods from Deerfield river. 



The soil on the spot is alluvial, consisting of a dry, rich, 

 vegetable mould, with a large intermixture of sand ; and the 

 field, elevjtted 14 feet above the bed of the river, is annually 

 mowed. A valley encircles the ruptured spot on the east, 

 south, and west, only five feet lower, yet so marshy and soft, 

 as to render draining necessary to make it passable ; and im- 

 mediately back of this valley, on the south, rises a hill 100 feet 

 high, at whose foot are several springs- North of the rupture, 

 also, between it and the river, is a gradual descent of three 

 feet : indeed, the ground slopes from it on every side except 

 the northwest. 



A fissure one inch wide and fourteen deep, forming an almost 

 perfect ellipsis, whose diameters are 9 and 5i rods, marks the 

 exterior limit of the convulsion. Within this curve are seve- 

 ral others nearly concentric to it, some forming a quarter, and 

 some half an ellipsis, and near the longer axis are others, running 

 in various directions. On this transverse diameter, which lies 



