228 Miscellaneous Notices of Mountain Scenery^ ^c, 



tains were covered with so heavy a growth of woods, of 

 whether the slides were produced by the falling" of such a 

 quantity of rain so suddenly, after the earth had been ren- 

 dered light and loose by the long drought, I arn utterly una- 

 ble to say. K\\ I know is, that at the close of a rainy day, 

 the clouds seemed all to come together over the White 

 Mountains, and at midnight discharge their contents at 

 once in a terrible burst of rain, which produced the eftects 

 that have now been described. Why these effects were 

 produced now, and never before, is known only to Him, who 

 can rend the heavens when he will, and come down, and 

 cause the mountains to flow down at his presence. 



Yours, &c. Carlos Wilcox, 



3. Letter of Mr, Theron Baldwin. 



New Haven, August 14, 1828. 



TO PROF. SILLIMAN. 



Sir — The following notice, first issued at Montpelier, went 

 the rounds of the papers in the course of the last summer. 



Montpelier, (Vt.) July 10, 1827. 



Avalanche. — A gentleman at Fayston, on whose veracity 

 the most implicit reliance nmy be placed, has obligingly 

 furnished us with the following account of an avalanche of 

 earth, or slide of the mountain, in Lincoln, Addison county, 

 on the 27th ult., occasioned by the late abundant and almost 

 incessant rains. 



On the 30th of June, I went, in company with sixteen of 

 my neighbors, to visit the spot so singularly marked by Prov- 

 idence, which I am now about to describe. I found the 

 slide to commence near the top of the mountain, between 

 two large rocks which were stripped of earth, opening a 

 passage of four rods wide, from which it proceeded in a 

 south easterly direction, gradually widening for the distance 

 of two hundred rods, to the south branch of Mill Brook in 

 Fayston. In its course it swept every thing in its way ; 

 overturning trees by their roots, divesting them of roots, 

 branches and bark, and often breaking them in short pieces. 

 A number of rocks, judged to weigh from fifteen to twenty 

 tons were moved some distance. From where it entered 

 Mill Brook, its course was in a north easterly direction, two 

 hundred and eighty rods, the natural course of the brook be- 

 ing very small ; but the channel cut by this torrent is now from 



