616 ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE ISLAND OF AQUIDNECK. 
on Aquidneck Island. Wherever there is a mass of rock which juts 
abruptly from the general surface, it shows some of the peculiar 
marks of southward moving ice; besides the universal smoothing 
and scoring of the surface, each of these projections shows us 
the phenomena of “shock and lee sides,” and the northern enl 
is always more worn than the southern end. All the precipitous 
slopes of any considerable area are upon the faces away from the 
northern side of the masses to which they belong. This sort of 
evidence is visible in most regions which have been subjected to 
glacial action, but at two points on this island it takes a shape 
which has not been observed at other points on our coast. In the 
felsite district south of Newport Harbor there are many admit 
able specimens of rounded bosses of rock, the “ roches moutonée” 
of the French geologists. These, one and all, show on careful study | 
more or less of the shock and lee sides. There is one of these fek 
site masses which has its northern end riven into massive fragments 
which have been pushed around towards the south in such a fash- 
ion as to make the direction of the force very evident. We see 
here the prodigious rending force of the glacier, for there = 
been separated at one moment a mass of rock sufficient to furnish | 
at least one hundred tons of boulders to the ice current. j 
The mass of conglomerate and associated materials known 4S 
Paradise Rocks also shows some interesting phenomena. These ‘ 
rocks consist of a set of ridges of steeply inclined beds of varying : 
hardness, which owe their position to a number of parallel ei a 
extending in a north and south direction with a considera 
rise at shap 
throw, so that the projecting edges of the rocks x w 
angles to the height of from fifty to one hundred an fifty ae 
ks in the direction — 
i 
above the sea level. Carefully tracing these roc : : 
comes evident 
i 
i 
5 
in which they are continued to the northward, it be ade 
that, at the time when they were formed, the ridges conum 
several hundred feet to the northward of the base of the “i 
which lead down to the comparatively low land which now bonm" 
them on that side. We cannot resist the convicti | 
erful agent which has cut away these solid masses of 
ice stream which has so clearly scored their surfaces s 
marks of its power on every square foot of their | 
surfaces. de 
Very little of the surface of the island remains in precisely 
condition in which it was at the time of the coming of e 
