Vermont daily transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1868-1870, 1868-07-08
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BY PROF. ". y. CUNNING.

BY PROF.. ". d. CUNNING.
Near the frozen well u Brandon, IT.
self Il geologic wonder is stratum Of
clay containing brown coal and one of
the ores of iron. Ihc coal is little more
than charrcd wood. The texture is not
wholly destroyed. Nuts and fruit
abound in the stratum. The m0rking
on many Of Tie nuts is quite distinct
oven to the naked eye. The microscope
reveals the structure 20 perfectly that
we do not hesitate to refer some species
to an order of trees belonging chiefly to
die torrid zone. The buckth0m and
star apple OF the south are almost the
only representatives Of the order in our
country In the age of these Brandon
clays, Vermont had a tropical climate
and the slopes of the Green Mountains
were clad in palms and stately sappodil~
las. Clay strata of The same age in
Martha's Vineyard and in Virginia con-
tains the bones and teeth of whales and
die teeth of gigantic sharks. The Bran
don clay tells you that in some time
long ago the western slopes Ofthe Green
cal sea and the clays of Gay Head tell
you what leviathans pc0plcd that Ter
tiary sea.
These Tertiary strata-aS the Brandon
hold the record of n recent period of
earth history. Two facts will give us a
vague conception of Vermont history
after the formation OF Brandon clay
and coal The State is covered with
gravel, clay or sand forming what we
snail call "she Drift" In this drift at
Mt. Holly mon have discovered the re-
mains OF great elephant. The masto-
don that was the namc-Was q third
II, Il, TO Di
deposit everything this bowlder Drift, in
the town OF Charlotte, the bones Of a
whale were found. Elephants and
whales once in Vermont! How vast
and vague the ages since the Brandon
clay the age from the elephant TO the
whale! Have these ages left any record
on the rocks which science may deci-
pher?
In every town in the State, You will
find loose, transported masses OF gran
lite, quartz, slate or green stone. Bowl
dcrs we call them. BY studying the
rocks in the mountains and Lodges, we
can most always trace these powders
back to their parent beds. In Whiting
ham, you may see boWldcr which
weighs about 3, 400 tons, and the charac-
ter of the rock identifies it with the
Green Mountain range which lies north
westward over the valley Of Decrtield
river. Hundreds of powders lie strewn
all over the State, which can be traced
to mountains or lodges i'll the north or
northwest. And in almost every town,
lodges OF rock are found planned down,
polished and scratched-the scratches
or grooves running generally, south
ward. You will find these scratches
high upon the mountains; on Mansfield
mountain, above the chin. Some trc-
| l,,.Y tod 1,a
earth, moving southwark, crushing the
rocks INFO gravel, and sowing the hills
and valleys with powders. The flood
overtopped the Green Mountains and
scored Mansfield to the "Chin," and
Mt. Washington, up 5000 feet from the
sea level. hi such a sketch as this,
cannot give the facts which lead Us to
say that this was an ''ice Hood Since
the time of the Brandon clays the State
has passed from tropical climate to n
polar. 1t has been under Il vast sheet Of
glacial ice. When the ice period had
passed it was peopled by gigantic ele-
! land, New York and the provinces
sunk, at least five hundred feet, and part
of the State became the bottom of an
ocean tenanted by whales. And these
changes could not have been paroXys-
mai. Glacial cpochs are periodical.
Provision for glacial winters, desolating
the earth and scourging the granite into
soil, is fixed as deeply in the constitu-
ton of nature as the provision for WIN
ter every twelvemonth. Each is
rhythmical, our winter coming with
the yearly revolution of the earth in its
orbit, and the glacial winter returning
with the rhythm OF the orbit from cir
Gle to ellipse. The astronomer has
shown Us that the earth's orbit pulses to
and fro from Il circle to long cllipse,
and recent Investigations have shown
that when the orbit is most elliptical,
and the winters of the north hemisphere
occur in that part Of the orbit most re-
mote from the sun, the north hemis-
phere will have 4 glacial epoch. | find
Sir William Grove and Sir John Her
schel maintaining, from Astronomical
calculations, that the last glacial epoch
closed about hundred thousand years
ago! And that is only moment in
geological time. From the Brandon
coal you read of Il tropical sea, and the
slopes Of the Green Mountains clad i'll
) palms and sappodillas; from the gravel,
the powders, the scored valleys and
mountains, you read of a glacial winter,
where Vermont lay shacklcd in ice, as
: Northern Greenland to-day; from the
Mt. Holly elephant, of land again and
its life, and from the Charlotte whale,
of an ocean and its life. Here is sue
cession of events, and astronomy helps
us to estimate the time since the last
event. Herald.