No. 50.] 
351 
bergs, it is supposed then, as they are borne by currents or driven by 
the winds, perform the office of wearing away the rocks, by means 
of their attached boulders, while they are firmly frozen in, or imbedded 
in their inferior portions. This is a favorite theory with geologists, 
and it is certainly one which explains admirably the transportation of 
boulders, and their dissemination over wide areas at the present day ; 
but is it adequate to the explanation of what are termed diluvial grooves 
and scratches, and moreover the polishing of rocks, which in the case 
of limestones, is often quite perfect ? It is thought not, for the follow- 
ing reasons : 1st. The immense width of country over which those 
polished surfaces are found almost continuously. 2d. There is a nicer 
uniformity of action exhibited on those surfaces than apparently could 
be produced by icefloes. But in the 3d place, those polished surfaces 
were made before icefloes were known in the earth's history. That 
the movement of mountains of ice in the sea is a modern event, is clear, 
when it is known that no large boulders occur in any of the rocks. It 
is evident they ought to be found, in case they existed during the depo- 
sition of the earlier strata, for then as now, they must have been 
loaded with rocks and stones, and then as now, they would have been 
dropped and scattered over the bottom of seas where rocks were form- 
ing, and which would have inclosed them, and which, ere this time, 
would have been disclosed by human agency. The large boulders 
which we suppose may have been transported by ice, overlie all other 
formations, and I have not been able to find even in the tertiary class 
of this State a single rock. Occasionally I have met with very small 
stones, such as are transported by moderate currents of water. If ice, 
carrying stones and rocks, wore and polished the rocks in the great val- 
ley of the St. Lawrence, we ought to find stones and rocks in the de- 
posit immediately upon those surfaces, but as we do not find them, we 
are compelled to assign some other reason for this abrasion than ice in 
the transportation of boulders. 
The whole appearance of the polished surfaces is such, as to indicate 
at least great uniformity of action, an appearance more in conformity 
to what we should expect to result, from running water bearing along 
sand and gravel, alternating with currents of great power, during which 
increase, larger stones were forced along. In connexion with this sub- 
ject, I may very properly mention the existence of an immense pot hole 
in a ledge of granite in the town of Antwerp, and in the open country. 
It is at least 100 feet above the Oswegatchie, three-fourths of a mile 
