of the Town of Nexv- Haven. 87 



been rounded and smoothed by the friction of other 

 stones and water. The Beaver Ponds are said to con- 

 tain peat. 



On the whole, it seems probable that our plain has 

 been greatly raised and extended, if it was not originally 

 formed, by alluvion^ and in the same proportion as it has 

 acquired successive strata, the surrounding hills have 

 been lowered to furnish the materials ; in the same man- 

 ner, it is probable that all eminences are undergoing a 

 constant degradation, and the plains and vallies by the 

 same means are rising continually, and extending their 

 limits also, where circumstances will admit of such ex- 

 tension. 



II. Of the nioimtainoiis and hilly country. 



When we come to examine the heights which encir- 

 cle the plain of New- Haven, we find a state of things 

 very different from what has been described. Indica- 

 tions every where occur of a very ancient, if not of a pri- 

 mitive country, and in some parts at least, we must con- 

 clude that for many ages, if not from the creation, things 

 have remained substantially as they now are. 



On the East, at the edge of the plain, rises a perpen- 

 pendicular front of rock about 450 feet high, at the foot 

 of which runs one of the rivers formerly alluded to in de- 

 scribing the plain. 



The East Rock, as this eminence is called, presents to 

 tlie eye a range of rude and irregular columns, whose 

 surfaces have been evidently exposed to successive frac- 

 tures, which have observed something like regularity, 

 being generally found parallel to the preceding fractures. 

 In this manner it happens, that prismatic figures of con- 

 siderable regularity, may be observed on the front of the 

 rock, and, on examining the stones which have fallen in 

 the progress of time, or which have been broken off by 

 the stone diggers, they are generally found to have some- 

 thing of a regular form, in some instances very striking 

 and complete. The most common figures observed 

 here are the triangular, the five and six sided prism, the 

 parallelopipedon and the rhomboidal prism. A disposi- 

 tion to assume regular forms is one characteristic of 



