J. De Laski— Glacial Action on Mount Katahdin. a7 
Art. V.—Glacial Action on Mount Katahdin; by Joun Dz 
Laski, Carver's Harbor, Maine 
Ow the twenty-first of September last, in company with Mr. 
George E. Bird of Portland, a graduate of Harvard College, and 
a guide from Sherman, the next town south of Pattern, I ascend- 
ed Mount Katahdin, the highest land in Maine, on the south side 
by way of one of the “slides.” The weather was fine, wit 
few clouds in the sky till late in the afternoon. This slide 
I take to be the same by which Prof. Charles H. Hitchcock and 
party ascended to the top of Katahdin ten years ago.* On this 
route, after crossing Avalanche Brook at the base of the mount- 
ain—the stream of which is fed by springs up toward the top 
of Katahdin—we found fossiliferous rocks at various heights in 
our path. Boulders of this character were met with well up 
toward the “ Horseback” ride, and I judged the highest place 
of their occurrence to be seven hundred feet below the “ Chim- 
ney” top. This is the highest peak in the region except Po- 
mola, the apex of Katahdin, which according to Dr. Young, 
with whom J visited the mountain twenty-four years ago, is 
five thousand three hundred feet above the sea, and according 
to Prof. Hitchcock, eighty-five feet higher.t Ido not think the 
“Chimney” top is more than three hundred feet below the top 
of Pomola, and probably two hundred would be nearer the truth ; 
and if this is added to the seven hundred feet, and the amount 
taken from the height, we have four thousand three hundred 
and eighty-five feet for the height of the fossils above the sea ; 
and if we call the foot of the slide three thousand feet above 
the ocean, we have nearly fourteen hundred feet above the foot 
of the slide for the locality of the upper fossils. 
n connection with these Devonian fossils—all of them im- 
pressions of shells of Oriskany beds—we found small boulders 
of micaceous sandstone and arenaceous schist, and a specimen of 
a eed and Mr. Bird found a specimen of flint, undistinguish- 
able from chalk flint, higher than the localities of the foreign 
boulders found by me. I should judge his specimen to have 
lain five or six hundred feet higher than the boulders contain- 
ing fossils, The mass of flint would weigh a pound or more, 
d was water-worn. : 
Now the question presents itself, how came these erratic 
boulders—fossiliferous and non-fossiliferous— on the south side 
of Katahdin? ‘The entire mountain so far as I saw it—and 
have also been up it by the way of the north side to the top, 
and down that of its eastern As gen syenite, like that of the 
“granite” of Vinalhaven, but generally of a coarser texture. 
* Report of Scientific Survey of Maine for 1861, p. 397 = ¢ Ib., p., 308. 
