558 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
tahdin range were the only ice clad peaks in this part of the 
continent. 
When in their turn the glaciers of the White Mountain 
region began to melt away, the freshets occasioned by the : 
sudden large accumulation of water remodelled many of 
these moraines and carried off the minute materials they 
contained, to deposit them lower down in the shape of river 
terraces. I have recently satisfied myself, by a eareful ex- 
amination, that all the river terraces of the Connecticut 
River valley and its tributaries, as well as those of the Mer- 
rimack and its tributaries, are deposits formed by the floods 
descending from the melting glaciers. What President 
Hitchcock has described as sea-beaches and ocean bottoms 
near the White Mountain and Franconia N otches, as well as 
in the Connecticut River valley and along the Merrimack, 
have all the same origin. The ocean never was in contact 
with these deposits, which nowhere contain any trace of 
marine organic remains. 
NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
BOTANY. 
RICHARDSONIA SCABRA, à tropical American Rubiaceous weed, has every 
now and then been picked up and sent us from Georgia or Alabama; and 
if it is Pursh's Spermacoce involucrata, as is probable, it was introduced 
more than half a century ago. It appears that it is now taking wide pos- 
very common throughout the piney wood region of Alabama skirting the 
Gulf coast. It seems to choke out all the grasses by its more luxuriant 
growth. It is known by farmers, as “ Mexican Clover," and may possi- 
bly have been introduced during the Mexican war, as it is said to grow 
in the rear of Vera Cruz. It is relished by all kind of stock, either green 
or cured. à í 
In my capacity, during our late war. as botanist and chemist for the de- 
4 
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