Oa Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 
ing, rounding, scratching and furrowing of the ledges over, which the 
drift materials have passed, and unless these ledges have been decom- 
posed upon their surfaces, they are covered with scratches or striz, 
usually parallel to one another, and indicating the course of the drift 
agency. Ledges of talcose and argillaceous rocks preserve these mark- 
ings the most distinctly. Were the rocks of Maine laid bare, fully half - 
the surface would show these marks of smoothing. 
The course of the striz ‘in Maine vary from north 70 deg. west to 
north 80 deg. east. : 
At the Lubec lead mines, a series of striz were observed upon the 
side of a perpendicular wall, following the course of the wall around a 
corner. The course of the striz ultimately varied at right angles from 
their original directions. At several places at the sea shore the striz 
have been noticed below high water mark, and others were seen to run 
under the ocean at low-water mark. The course of the strize upon the 
lakes north of the Katahdin mountains have more of an easterly course 
than those to the east and south of the same mountains. It locks as 
if the mountains formed an obstruction around which the striating 
agency operated, in preference to climbing the elevation. It is a curious 
fact, in the same connection, that the stris are wanting on the sum- 
mit of Katahdin. It appears also that there was another deflection of 
the course of the strize in the valley of Sandy river. Mt. Abraham 
may have arrested the drift current on the north and turned it into 
Sandy river valley on the west, from which deflection it struck against 
the Saddleback mountain range, continued to Mount Blue, and was 
then directed toward French’s Mountain in Farmington. 
Drift strize are never found upon the south side of mountains, unless 
for a short distance, where the slope is very small. It is common to 
see different courses of strize intersecting one another, as on the south 
side of Chamberlin lake, where striz north 70 deg. west and north 50 
deg. west intersect, and north 17 deg. west and north 67 deg. west in- 
tersect. | 
The only examples of glacial markings discovered, in Maine, are on 
the St. John river, in its upper portion. Above the Lake of the Seven 
Islands, on this river, there are no glacial markings, unless the 
scratches upon the pavement of bowlders are to be referred to them. 
The bed of the river is full of stones, and upon the banks below high- 
water mark they are as firmly set as paving stones in the streets of a 
city. The scratches are not as constant and distinct as those of the 
glacier below, and may possibly have been formed by ice freshets in 
