Thickness of the Strata. 



223 



existence of our globe through periods as long as geological re- 

 searches require ; since the sacred record does not declare the time 

 of its original creation : and since such a view of its antiquity en- 

 larges our ideas of the operations of the Deity in respect to duration, 

 as much as astronomy does in regard to space ? Instead of bringing 

 us into collision with Moses, it seems to me that geology furnishes us 

 with some of the grandest conceptions of the Divine Atributes and 

 plans to be found in the whole circle of human knowledge. 



The objection of a writer in the American Journal of Science,* 

 that such a height of waters as would deposite Mount Toby, must 

 have produced a lake nearly to the upper part of New Hampshire, 

 in the Connecticut valley, and thus have caused the same sandstone 

 to be produced higher up that valley than Northfield, loses its force, 

 when it is recollected that this formation was deposited before its 

 strata were elevated. For the elevating force undoubtedly changed 

 the relative level of different parts of the country. In this case, the 

 disturbing force must have acted beneath the primary rocks. And 

 besides, we have good evidence which will be shown by and by, that 

 our new red sandstone was formed beneath the ocean. We cannot 

 then reason on this subject from present levels. 



If the preceding statements and reasonings be correct, in order to 

 ascertain the actual thickness of the new red sandstone strata in the 

 Connecticut valley, above the river, we must add the height of Mount 

 Toby above the strata seam E H, to the height of Deerfield moun- 

 tain ; that is, B E to E S=C N. It certainly will not exceed the 

 truth to call B E 800 feet, and E S 400=1200, the thickness of the 

 strata above the bed of the Connecticut. In no place, that I know 

 of, has this river cut through the sandstone : and hence we are al- 

 most entirely destitute of means of ascertaining the thickness of the 

 strata beneath the river. If the primary strata have the same slope 

 beneath the sandstone, as above it, this rock cannot be less than 

 1000 to 2000 feet thick, beneath the river, or N D. But this is little 

 better than conjecture ; both because the slope of the primary strata 

 is very unequal in different places, and because probably the surface 

 beneath the sandstone, is as uneven as it is in other primary valleys ; 

 which is evinced by the curved structure of the sandstone strata in 

 some places. 



In the second part of this Report I have described the cave and 

 fissure in Sunderland, as having been produced by the wearing away 



Vol. 22. p. 223. 



