262 SURFACE GEOLOGY. 
declivity, pushed them over, and left them on the lee side of the hill. 
The contrast between the smooth fields south of Prospect hill and the 
rough pastures towards Mill Village is very strongly marked. On the 
hill north-east from Colburn’s, in the edge of Lebanon, is another enor- 
mous accumulation of large gneissic blocks. On the College grounds, to 
the west of Culver hall, the surface was formerly covered by numerous 
large blocks of hornblende schist, sometimes ten feet across, derived 
from the adjacent ledges, and transported southerly by the Connecticut 
glacier. Excavations showed that some of them occupied an unstable 
position; if the earth were removed from their sides, they would topple 
over. It is a characteristic of till, that many of the boulders are so situ- 
ated, and it bears witness to their method of removal. Had they fallen 
from an iceberg, they would rest with the centre of gravity 2 equelibrio. 
Now they are kept in a forced position, such as would result from the 
shoving along of a pile of débris, or such action as arises from the move- 
ment of a glacier. Underneath this clayey coarse drift the material is 
gravelly and less compact, derived from the gneissic rather than the 
slaty rocks of the neighborhood. 
Quechee Railroad Cut. Between Hartford and Quechee villages the 
Woodstock Railroad has cut deeply into the lower till, affording the hand- 
somest exhibition of the two varieties of till yet displayed in this region. 
The cut is 40 feet deep, three fourths of it being the lower member, very 
compact, full of small-sized glaciated stones cemented together by thick 
boulder clay. Every stone is striated. There are great numbers of the 
Burlington red sandstone, and many beautiful green serpentines. The 
most common are of gray quartzite. One was composed of a fossil coral. 
The red stones have travelled the greatest distance, from over the Green 
Mountains, about sixty miles. Concerning these and the similar ones at 
Hanover, it is to be remarked that they were raised over an acclivity of 
3,000 feet altitude as well as transported a great distance. The upper 
ten feet of this cut is a typical locality for the upper till. There is the 
distinctively reddish-brown color, loose consistency, rough blocks com- 
mon with an occasional striated one, and very many of the siliceous lime- 
stones of the neighborhood. None of the latter were observed in the 
lower till. 
