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site or fibrolite. This formation has in general resisted weather¬ 
ing, and thus has preserved the marks of the ice, to an exceptional 
degree. On removing the surface covering from a ledge in a 
glaciated region, glacial striae are usually visible. But after a 
comparatively short exposure to the air, the surface of the ledge, 
as a rule, weathers and disintegrates, and all but the coarser mark¬ 
ings soon disappear. The summits of Monadnock, Kearsarge and 
Ragged Mountain are, however, entirely bare, and yet the finer 
glacial markings have there been preserved with great distinctness. 
This is doubtless mainly due to the nearly complete absence from 
its constituents, of any easily alterable mineral, like pyrites or 
feldspar ; but the very thorough planishment of the surface by the 
ice, seems to have had, too, a preservative effect on the rock, by 
preventing the lodgment of surface waters. A specimen on the 
table illustrates this. It is apparently fresh quite close to its smooth 
side, which was the top of the ledge ; while along the opposite 
face, that was next a seam, there is a discolored band, indicating 
alteration, more than half an inch wide. It is not, I think, sup- 
posable that this seam existed in glacial times, for in that case the 
fragment would probably have been dislodged by the ice. 
Perhaps the reason why the summits of Kearsarge and Monad¬ 
nock are treeless, is to be sought in this resistance to disintegra¬ 
tion of the rocks which compose them. There is nothing from 
which a soil can be formed excepting in the crevices, where the 
action of surface waters may be brought into play. Such crevices 
contain grasses and shrubs—sometimes small trees. The sum¬ 
mits of Monadnock and Kearsarge do not appear to be above the 
timber line of the latitude. 
I have enlarged a fraction of the map published with the Geo¬ 
logical Report of New Hampshire to show Mounts Ragged 
and Kearsarge on a scale of half a mile to the inch. The con¬ 
tour lines indicate vertical intervals of one hundred feet. The 
arrows show the direction of the glacial striae at the points at 
which they are placed. 
The road up Mount Kearsarge from the north side, follows a 
spur of the mountain that juts out in a northwesterly direction 
from the peak. This spur, as is shown by the striae visible on 
the numerous planed and embossed outcrops, from the foot to the 
