Randolph County journal. [volume] (Winchester, Randolph County, Ind.) 1855-1862, 1859-06-30

l
tains to which they originally be-
longed. How were such enormous
masses transported ? They often
weigh many tons, and no ordinary
agency could have availed for locomo-
tion. Hugh Miller, in his volume on
Popular Geology. just published by
Gould & Lincoln, gives the credit of
such gigantic facts to icebergs, and
gives an elaborate argument to prove
that Great Britain, New England.
much of tie North American conti-
nent, was once covered by an Arctic
ocean, over which icebcrgs foated, as
they now career in Baffin's Bay. In
illustration of the power of ice to
transport bowlderS he gives two we'll
known facts, which are much to the
point:
'Some of my audience may have
heard of a bowlder, well known on
both sides of the Moray FIRTH as the
Travelled stone of Petty" district
which includes the Moor of Culloden,
and to whose parish church Hector
Boece saw the gigantic bones of the
colossal Little John. The Clach dhu
MA ban, or black stone of the white bog
for such is the geographically ais
criptive Gaelic name of the mass
measures about six feet in hight,
by from six to seven feet in breadth
and thickness, and served, up to the
10Th of February. 1870, as march
stone between the properties of Castle
Stuart and Culloden. 1t lay just
within foodmark, near where a little
stream empties its elf intoa shallow
sandy bar. There had been a severe,
long. continued frost throughout the
early part Of the month"; and the upper
portions of the bay had acquired,
mainly through the agency of the
streamlet, a continuous covering of
ice, that had attained, round the base
of the stone which it clasped fast, a
thickness of eighteen inches.
con the night of the 10Th the tide
rose unusually high on the beach, and
there broke out violent hurricane
from the east-southeast, accompanied
by snow storm. There is meal
mill in the immediate neighborhood OF
the stone; and when the old miller
as he related the story to the late
Sir Tomas Dick Lauder-got up on
the morning of the Doth, SO violent
was the storm, and SO huge the snow
wrcths that blocked up every window
and door, and rose over the caves, that
he could hardly make his way to his
barns, a journey of but few yards,
/. and in returning again from them to
his dwelling, he narrowly escaped los
ing himself in the drift. In looking
towards the bay, in one of the pauses
of the storm, he could scarce credit his
oversight, the immense Clach dhr
n-Aban had disappcarcd-vanished-
gone clean off the ground; and he
called to his wife in astonishmenl
and alarm, that the "meiklc stane wa:
ava"
The honest woman looked out, anC
then rnbbed her eyes, as if to verify
their evidence; but the fact was un
questionable; the "meikle stone" GER
tainly "was awa;" and there RENAME,
but hollow pit in the sand, with :
long, shallow furrow, stretching from
the pit outwards, to where the snow
rime closed thick over the sea, to mari
where it had been. When, however
the weather cleared up, the ston
; again became visible, lying out in tn
sands uncovered by the ebb, sever
hundred and eighty feet from its form
er position. In the evening of the day
the neighbors fockcd out by scores t.
examine the scene of so extraordin
ary prodigy. Where the stone ha,
t lain. they found but the deep dent
connected by the furrow which la.
e athwart the bay in the line of the hur
n ricane, with the stone itself, aroun,
/ the base of which there still projecte'
G .hick cCrnice Of ice. In this he,
/ position the stone still lies; and only
d few years ago-mayhap still-a wood
!. en- post, which marked the point wher
!, the two contiguous properties met
!, marked also the spot from which, afte
d a rest of ages, it had set out on it
g short voyage.
: My other case of bowlder travelin
. in some respects more curious cas-
c than the one related-occurred early !;
t the present century, on the easter
: coast of Southerlandshire. Near th
5 small hamlet of Torribal, in the uppe
Il part of Loeb Fleet, there stood, abor
II fifty years ago, rude obelisk of ur
II dressed stone, generally regarded a
II Danish. which, through more ancier
G than authentic history. or even trad
)f tion in the district, was less so tha
Y the old coast line, as it had been ev