Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 151 



unless notice of the proposed amendment or alteration shall have been 

 given at the preceding annual meeting. 



Dr. Morton having arrived, took the chair as president of the 

 meeting. 



Resolved, That Prof. Locke, Dr. Jackson, and Pi^of Hitch- 

 cock, be appointed a committee to prepare business for the Asso- 

 ciation. 



Prof Hitchcock then read a paper ''on the Phenomena of Drift 

 in this country," which was illustrated by numerous drawings, 

 and a map of the United States, on which were drawn lines rep- 

 resenting the course of the striae, and lines of dispersion of bowl- 

 ders. In the course of his paper Prof H. called on Mr. Gray 

 to describe a remarkable moraine in Andover, Mass, Mr. Gray 

 stated this moraine to be one mile long and fifteen or twenty feet 

 in height. At the close of this paper, an animated and extended 

 discussion arose on the subject of drift. 



Dr. Jackson objected to the views of Prof. Hitchcock, as pub- 

 lished in a recent report on the Geology of Massachusetts, but 

 having had an opportunity, since those views were published, of 

 conversing freely with Prof. H. he found but little real difference 

 in their present opinions. He would, however, by no means 

 consider that we could yet form an unobjectionable theory on the 

 subject of drift, polished grooves, and the transportation of erratic 

 blocks of stone. If we admit several different causes, how re- 

 markable would it be should they be found to have acted in nearly 

 the same direction ! Yet we cannot agree upon any known 

 cause, as sufficient to explain all the facts. This country exhib- 

 its no proofs of the glacial theory as taught by Agassiz, but on 

 the contrary the general bearing of the facts is against that the- 

 ory ; for we observe nowhere in this country a general radiation 

 of detritus from the principal mountain ranges, although, as in 

 Rhode Island, there is a divergence from the point whence the 

 bowlders were derived. This divergence is however merely a 

 spreading of fifteen miles for forty in extent, and it is in the 

 usual general direction of North American drift to the southward ; 

 none of the bowlders having been drifted to the north of their 

 parent bed. 



Mr. Lyell offered some remarks on the subject of the distribu- 

 tion of bowlders and of the furrows in the rocks, citing the re- 

 sult of many observations in Europe. 



