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BOSTON 



JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



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Vol. I. 



MAY, 183 5. 



No. 2. 



ART. VII— ON CERTAIN CAUSES OF GEOLOGICAL 



CHANGE NOW IN OPERATION IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



By Edward Hitchcock, A. M., Professor of Chemistry and 



Natural History in Amherst College. Communicated March 5, 

 1835. 



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The object of this communication is, to call the atten- 

 tion of the Societjj^ to certain causes that are at work to 

 modify the surface of this State, but which seem hitherto 

 to have been almost entirely overlooked by our geologists. 

 Some of them do, indeed, exert only a very limited influ- 

 ence. But at a time when every fact illustrative of the 

 dynamics of causes now in action is eagerly sought after, 

 none, however feeble, should be overlooked. I do not 

 mean that these causes (except perhaps one or two of 

 them) are not described in the treatises on geology ; but 

 merely that their operation has not been noticed on this 

 side of the Atlantic. In describing them I hope so to avoid 

 technical obscurity, that my statements will be intelligible 

 to every man of good sense, whether a geologist or not; 

 so that, should the Society make them public, many may 

 be led to observe similar phenomena and to describe 



, and thus the facti 



VOL. I. PART II. 



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