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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
points to a different conclusion. For had volcanic action continued 
into the Coal-era, or had there been then any considerable 
eminence subject to wear and waste, the products of such waste 
would be found in the Carboniferous strata, at least in the 
vicinity of the hill. None such have been observed, and con- 
sidering the origin of the strata last mentioned, in fresh water 
swamps and estuaries, it would seem probable that the mountain, 
so called, was at this period not only quiescent but actually 
buried beneath many hundreds of feet of sedimentary rocks. 
Still the mountain must have been somewhat higher than now, 
for the ash beds derived therefrom are found nearly two hundred 
feet higher in position than the summit of the mountain, which 
must therefore have been cut down at least to that extent. Just 
when the overlying materials were removed or when the old 
pipe or chimney, by becoming exposed, was thus made liable to 
loss, we know not. It may have remained buried through all 
the vast lapse of time represented by the formations, Triassic, 
Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary, which followed the Car- 
boniferous, but of which the region affords no record; but it is 
hardly possible that the Ice age, with its powerful instruments 
of erosion, could have passed without materially affecting the 
region, as it did all others subject to its influence. And the 
wonderful exhibition of planed and polished rocks to be seen, 
not far away, upon the Rockland hills, leaves little doubt upon 
this point. They show beyond question the presence of ice in 
such quantity, and moving under such pressure, that the pebbles 
of conglomerates several inches in diameter and composed of 
pure quartz, have been cut through or planed down as though 
they had offered no resistance whatever to the abrading agent. 
For a time, no doubt, and possibly for a long time, this mantle 
of ice and snow believed by many to have been some thousands 
of feet thick, would have still farther buried the seat* of the old 
volcanic fires as it did the beautiful valley of the St. John near 
by ; but with the return of less rigorous climatic conditions, and 
as the result of the floods following the melting of the ice, the 
mass now forming the mountain had its load removed, and the 
