Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-07-02
Victoryl
HOW B0ULDERs A v

1t is well known that huge boulders Of rock are
often found hundreds OF miles distant from the
hills or mountains to which they originally belon-
ged. How were such enormous masses transpor-
tedi They often weigh many tons, and no ordi-
nary agency could have aveiled for locomotion.
Hugh Miller, in his volume on Popular Geology
just published by Gould & Lincoln, gives The credit
of such gigantic facts to iceburgs, and gives an
elaborate argument to prove that Great Britain,
Northern Europe, New England, much Of the
North American continent, was once covered by
an Arctic ocean, over which iceburgs Aoated, as
they now career in Bafin's Bay. In illustration
of the power Of ice to transport b~oulders, he gives
two we'll known facts, which are much 10 the
point
"Some of my audience may have heard Of q
boulder, we'll known on both sides Of the Moray
Firth as the Travelled stone Of Petty a dis
trict which includes the Moor of Culloden, and at
whose parish church Hector Boece saw the gigan~
tic bones of the colossal Little John. The Clach
dhu n-Aban, or black stone of the white bog-for
such is the graphically descriptive Gaelic name of
the about six feet in height, by
from six to seven feet in breadth and thickness,
and served, up tc the 10Th of FEBRUARY, 1899, as a
moiShHoboho ot"oo t"o piopeitoo u Suotlo Cbu-
art and Cullodden. 1t lay just within Hood-mark,
near where a little stream empties itself into a
shallow sandy bay. There had been a severe
long-continued frost through the early part of the
month; and the upper portions Of the bay had &c
quired, mainly through the agency Of the stream
let, o continuous covering of ice, that had attained
round the base of the stone which it clasped fast q
thickness Of eighteen inches.
"On the night of the 10Th, the tide rose unusu-
ally high on the beach, and there broke out a VIC.
len hurricane from the east-southeast, accompanied
by q snow-storm. There is a meal mill in the i'm
mediate neighborhood of the stone and when the
old miller-as he related the story to the late Sir
Thos. Dick Lauder-got up on the morning of the
10th, SO violent was the storm, and so huge the
snow-wreaths that blocked up every window and
door and rose over the caves, that he could hard
ly make his way to his barns, a journey of but a
few yards and in returning again from them to
his dwelling, he narrowly escaped losing himself
in the drill. In looking towards the bay, in one o!
the pauses of the storm, he could scarce credit his
~eyesight the immense Clach dhu n-Aban had dis
Observation-Disclosures clean off the ground .
and he called to his wife in astonishment and
alarm, that the make stane was awa.'
''The honest woman looked out, and then rub
bed her eyes as if to verify their evidence but the
fact was unquestionable; the 'maikle stane' Ger
tainly was awa;' and there remained but q hollow
pit in the sand, with q long shallow furrow, street
ching from the pit outwards to where the snow
rime closed thick over the sea, to mark where il
had been. When, however, the weather cleared
up, the stone again became visible, lying out in
the sands uncovered by the ebb, $50 feet from its
former position. In the evening of the day the
neighbors focked cut by scores to examine the
scene of SO extraordinary a prodigy. Where the
stone had lain they found lut the deep dent, con-
nected 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 projected a
thick cornice of ice. In this new position the
stone still, and only o few years ago-mayhap,
still-a wooded post which marked the point
where the two contiguous properties met-marked
also the spot from which, after a rest of ages, il
had set out on its short voyage.
my other case Of boulder traveling-in some
respects a more curious case than the one related
occurred early in the present century, ON the
eastern coast Of Sutherlandshire Near the small
J hamlet of Torribal, in the upper part of Loeb
Fleet, there stood, about fifty years ago, a rude
obelisk Of undressed stone, generally regarded OF
Danish, which, though more ancient than authen,
tic history, or even tradition in the district. was
less 80 than the old coast line, as it had been evi
IDENTIFY erected subsequent to the last change Of
level on the fat marginal strip which interyenes
q between the old line and the sea. 1t rose in the
middle of o swampy hollow, which protracted
rains sometimes converted into o strip of water
and which was sometimes swept by the overflow
ling of the neighboring river.
ION the eve of the incident which proved tn,
terminating one in its history, the hollow, previ
ously filled with rain water, had been frozen Il
the bottom by a continued frost, which was, how
ever, on the eve of breaking up and a dense 70,
lay thick in the valley, when a ~benighted Highlan
der, returning tipsy from a market by the light o
the moon, came staggering in the direction Of .h
standing stone, and in a drunken frolic set hi
bonnet on the top of it; and then wandering Of
into the mist, he lost sight of both stone an,
bonnet. and failing to regain them, he had to re
turn bareheaded to his home. The thaw came on
the river rose over its banks; the ics-cake aroun,
the obelisk hoated high above the level, wrench
ing up the obelisk along with it, as the ice of tb
st. Lawrence wrenched up the stakes desor;be
by Sir Charles Lyell and both ice-cake and cha
isk hoated down the Loeb to the sea. AS thu NOR
ming broke-a fierce morning Of food and temnes
they were seen passing what was some fort
years ago known as the Little Ferry; the alaru
went abroad along shores on both sides, that Their
was a man standing in the middle of tie loch Of
the floating ice, and in course of being swept on
to the ocean.
Poor man he had been crossing the river
,e was inferred, when the leo broke up; and. thong
the enterprise was a somewhat perilous one--fo
o the ice fragments were rushing furiously along o
the wild tide of the loch. maadsned by the inunds
B %tion--a boat, double-manned, sho. out from tn
shore to the rescue, and soon reached the driftin
~ice-hoe. 1t was ultimately seen, however, that th
supposed man was but a Danish obelisk, bearing o,
lis head q n xstasiaaa kaa.a.~-