HARTLAND VERMONT 
31 
was given up. In building across the swamp, they first laid 
two lines of logs lengthways of the road and then covered those 
with logs crossways close together and then covered those logs 
with earth. 
To aid in draining the swamp when digging muck there in 
1862 we dug a ditch across this road, and three feet down in the 
muck under the logs we found a live toad. He was about half 
the size of a common toad, very soft and tender. We put him 
up on the muck we had thrown out and he winked a few thanks 
to us and hopped away. 
When digging muck in this swamp later on in the seventies, 
I removed a large pine stump, and where I cut off a large root 
close to the body of the stump I counted 125 annular rings of 
yearly growth. Almost directly under this stump and ten inches 
lower down in the muck was a black ash stump a foot through 
and by counting the grains in portions of the partly decayed 
wood, I made its growth to be 150 years. Nearly under this 
stump and twenty inches lower down was the remains of a large 
black ash full two feet in diameter and probably of 300 years 
growth. Twenty inches still lower, and half its bigness in the 
marl, was a hemlock log of 75 years growth. Roots from the 
lower ash had run down through the hemlock log. Beside this 
log in the marl was a small hemlock stick cut at each end and 
trimmed and peeled by a beaver. It had lain there thousands 
of years when Babylon was founded. I showed you that stick. 
Now here was 650 years of tree growth. Allowing time for 
trees to go to decay and muck to form between them, it 
follows that muck began to form there 10 or 20 thousand years 
ago. 
Down under the muck on top of the marl, is a great variety 
of the shells of the common water snails, some of them quite 
perfect and others in various stages of decay. Some scientists 
think the marl is made up wholely of decayed shells, but I cannot 
accept that idea. I have examined the marl lower down with a 
high power microscope and have found no trace of shells. These 
shells at the top of the marl are fossils, and probably grew be¬ 
fore or about the time vegetation first appeared. The species 
are: Planorbis bicarinatus, campanulatus, corpulentus, lentus, 
trivolvis, deflectus and parvus; Physa hetrostropha, gyrina and 
Sayii; Limnaea palustris, elodes and humulis; Sphaerium sul¬ 
catum and striatinum; Pisidium compressum and Ancylus 
paralelus. 
