102 ON EROSIONS OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE. 



often see near falls. I was interested to see how high this fluviatile action might 

 be traced, and found it to grow fainter and fainter as I ascended, but I thought it 

 quite distinct 300 feet above the river (aneroid). It is I think the best example 

 that I ever saw of the gradual disappearance of these marks upwards. 



At this spot as we rise above the marks of river action, we meet with what I 

 have regarded as traces of ancient glaciers. These have already been noticed in 

 Part I, on Surface Geology, and will be fully described in Part III, on the Marks 

 of Ancient Glaciers. 



I have not ascertained the precise length of this gorge on Little river, though I 

 presume it is six or seven miles, with some interruptions, and three or four miles 

 in its lower part without interruptions, by wider openings. Though the hills that 

 bound the gulf are of very unequal height, yet I think we cannot regard their 

 average height as more than 600 to 800 feet. It reminded me of the Ghor in 

 Deerfield river. It is too crooked to impute much of its erosion to the ocean, 

 though doubtless its upper part may have been widened by that agency. 



12. Ancient river beds in Cavendish, Vermont. — Williams river and Black river, 

 streams of nearly the same size, rise in the Green Mountains, and running nearly 

 parallel, empty into Connecticut river; the former, two or three miles north of 

 Bellows Falls, and the latter, ten or eleven miles further north. Through most of 

 their course they are separated by mountains, rising sometimes, to n*ear a thousand 

 feet in height. Yet there are at least two gulfs, the Duttonsville one and that 

 at Proctorsville, in Cavendish, connecting the valleys of the two streams, and 

 through which Black river once flowed into Williams river : in other words, it is 

 probable that Black river was once a tributary of Williams river. The evidence 

 of the position I shall now present. 1 



The Duttonsville Gulf. 



The Rutland and Burlington railroad passes up Williams river from Bellows 

 Falls 18 miles to Gassett's station. There it turns to the right and crosses to 

 Black river, through the Duttonsville gulf. Through its whole course that gulf 

 bears evidence, to a practised eye, of being the former bed of a river, but just 

 before we reach Duttonsville, we find deep pot-holes in the gneiss rock, perhaps 50 

 feet above Black river. This old river bed, especially near Duttonsville, is choked 

 up to the depth of several feet by terrace materials, which must have been 

 deposited during the last submergence of the continent beneath the ocean. These 

 formed a bank so high, that as the surface emerged, and a river began to run down 



1 I am much indebted to William F. Hall, Esq., now of Washington city, and to Hon. William 

 Henry, of Bellows Falls, for calling my attention to these cases. To the latter gentleman I am, also, 

 indebted for a free ticket on the Rutland and Burlington railroad on a visit to the spot. Nor is this 

 the only^ime in which I have been thus liberally treated by gentlemen connected with that railroad. 

 Indeed, it is but justice to say, that in no other part of this country have I found all classes of the 

 community so ready to appreciate the connection between scientific researches and the public welfare, 

 and so ready to help them forward, as in Vermont. 



