Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1859-05-24
MJSCELLAN Y.
How Boulders Travel

boulders of rock are often found hundreds OF
miles distant from the hills or mountains to
which they originally belonged. How were
such enormous masses transported2 They often
weigh many tons, and no ordinary agency could
have availed for locomotion. Hugh Miller, in
his volume on 'sPopular Geology" "just published
bv Gould & Lincoln, gives the credit OF such
gigantic facts to icebergs, and gives an elaborate
argument to prove that Great Britain, Northern
Europe, New England, much of the North a
merican Continent, was once covered Dy an
Arctic Ocean, over which icebergs hoateo, as
they now career in Bafin's Bay. In Illustration
of the power of ice to transport boulders, ne
gives two well known facts, which are much 10
the point:
Some of my audience may have heard OF
boulder, we'll known on both sides OF the Moray
Firth as the travelled Stone OF Petty, "a dis,
trict which includea the Moor of Culloden, ana
at whose parish church Hector Boece saw the
gigantic bones of the colossal Little John. The
Clach dhu .Aban, or black stone of the white
bog,-for such is the graphically descriptive
Gaelic name of the moss,-measures about SIX
feet in height, by from six to seven feet ID
breadth and thickness, and served, up to the leth
February. l779, as march-s stone between the
properties of Castle Stuart and Culloden. 1t lay
| lust within Hoodmark, near where's little stream
empties itself into shallow sandy bay. There
had been severe, long continued frost through
out the early part of the month; aud the upper
portions of the bay had acquired, mainly through
| the agency of the streamlet, continuous cover
| ing OF ice, that had attained round the base OF
the stone which it clasped fast, thickness oil
eighteen inches.
On the night of the 10th, the tide rose unusu-
ally high on the beach, and there broke out
violent hurricane from the east-south east, ac-
companied by a snow storm. There is meal
min in the immediate neighborhood of the stone;
and whan the old miler-as he related the story
TO the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder-got up on
the morning of the goth, so violent was the
storm, and so huge the snow wreaths that block
ed up every window and door, and rose over the
caves, that he could hardly make his way to his
barns, q journey of but few yards: and IN re-
turning again from them to his dwelling, he mar
rowly escaped losing himself in the drift. ln
looking towards the bay, in one OF the pauees OF
the storm, he could scarce credit his eyeslght
the immense Clach du a-Aban had disappeared
-vanished-goDe clean off the ground; and ne
called to his wife in astonlshment and alarm, that
the ''neikle stane was ava"
The honest woman looked out, and then rub
bed her eyes as if to verify their evidence; but
the fact was unquestionable, the "meikle stane'
certainly twas ava" and there remained but q
hollow pit in the sand, with long, shallow
furrow, stretching from the pit outwards 10
where the snow rime closed thick over the sea,
TO mark where it had BEEN When, however,
the weather cleared up, the stone again became
visible. living out in the sands uncovered by the
ebb, seven hundred and eighty feet from its for
II tha M the 0QV tho
neighbors flocked out by scores to examine the
scene Of so extraordinary aprodigy. where the
stone had lain they found but the deep dent
connected by the furrow which lay athwart the
bay in the line of the hurricane, with the stone
itself around the base Of which there still pro-
iected thick cornice Of ice. In this new posi-
tion the stone:still lies; and only few years
ago-nay hap, still-a wooden post which mark
ed the point where the two contiguous proper
ties met, marked also the spot from which, al
ter rest Of ages, it had set out on its short Voy'
age.
NV other case of boulder travelling-ln some
resneets more curious case than the one related
occurred early in the present century, on the
eastern coast of Sutherlandshire. Near the
small hamlet of Torribal, in the upper part Of
Loch Fleet there stood, about fifty years ago,
rnde obelisk of undressed stone, generally re-
rarded as Danish, which, though more ancient
than authentic history, or even tradition, in the
district was less 30 than the old coast line as it
has been evidently erected, subsequent to the
last change of level, on the fiat marginal strip
which intervenes between the old line and the
sea. 1t rose in the middle of swampy hollow,
which protracted rains sometimes converted
| into strip of water, and which was sometimes
swept by the overhowings of the neighboring
river.
On the eve of the incident which proved the
terminating one in its history, the hollow, pre-
yiously filed with rain water, had been frozen
to the bottom by q continued frost, which was,
however, on the eve of breaking up; and dense
fog lay thick in the valley, when q benlghted
Highlander, returning tipsy from market Dy
the light of the moon, came staggering In the
direction of the standing stone, and IN drunken
frolc set his bonnet on the top of 1T; and then,
wandering off into the mist, he lost sight OF both
stone and bonnet, and, failing to regain them, he
had to return barehsaded to his home. The
thaw came on; the river rose over Its banks !;
the ice cake around the obesk doated high a.
bove the level, wrenohing up the obelisk along
with it as the ice of the st. Lawrence wrenched
up the stakes described by Sir Charles Lyell and
both ice cake and obelisk Hoated down the loch
to the sea. AS the morning broke-a herce
morning of flood and tempest-they were seen
passing what some forty years ago was known
as the Little Ferry and the alarm went abroad
along the shores on both aides, that there was
man standing in the middle of the Loeb On the
floating ice, and in course of being swept out TO
the ocean.
Poor man he had been crossing the river, it
was inferred, when the ice broke up, and though
the enterprise was somewhat perllous one, Tor
the ice fragments were rushing furiously along
on with the tide of the loch, maddened by the
inundation, boat, double manned, shot out
] from the shore to the rescue, and soon neared
I the drifting ice,foe. 1t was ultimately seen,
however, that the supposed man was but Dan
ish obelisk, bearing on its head mysterious
bonnet; and bonnet and obeisk were left to ind
their way to the German Ocean, in which it is
probable they now both lie. These modern in
stances of boulder travelling may serve to show
how huge stones originally associated with the
boulder clay, may have come to rest on the are
naceous or grayelly deposits which overlie it,
Through tie second voyage of the Petty boul-
der, it was deposited on recently formed bed OF
sand and the standing stone of Torribal may
now rest on sea.shells that were living half q
century ago.
LADY PREAoHRR.-Mrs. Antoinette Blackwell
nee Brown, preached at the Music Hall, Boston,
in the pulpit of Rev. Theodore Parker, last Sun
day. She took for her text the words, "Bear ye
one another's burdens" and delivered quite an
orthodox essay. In reading the scriptures, ir-
reverent people smiled when she came to the
massage in the thirteenth chapter of first Oorin-
tbiaps. "When was a child, spske as a child,
understood as child, l thought as child; but
when became man, put away childish