230 CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 



an ancient landmark is here, and what a marvelous 

 history is chiseled on its sides ; surpassing in antiq- 

 uity the Egyptian hieroglypic writings, and record- 

 ing events that happened before man appeared on 

 earth. What agency was at work in the long ages 

 past, that brought this mass of rock and landed it 

 here where the forest now stands? From what 

 place, and how far was it brought? Its measure- 

 ment in length and height is nearly twenty feet, 

 and fifteen feet in breadth. Nine thousand cubic 

 feet of solid rock carried along by a great glacier 

 that evidently once pushed its long, icy tongue 

 over the land, far southward, down to the sea. 



This is not, however, an erratic block, as the 

 geologists say, for beneath the soil everywhere in 

 this section, and for many miles north and south 

 from here, stretches a narrow belt of this same kind 

 of conglomerate — compressed clays and sands into 

 which pebbles have been incorporated, like raisins 

 in a pudding. It may be presumed that this belt 

 of pudding stone was once the bottom of a long 

 river, or arm of the sea, and into this body of water, 

 for ages, gravel and silt from the surrounding hills 

 had flowed. At last, by some sudden or gradual 

 upheaval, the land is raised, deep strata of mud 

 mixed with shingle appear, showing how century 



