Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1868-07-09
tfor the llrR,Lp,
The last Chapter et Earths hs-
tory In Vermont.
ny rRoF. W, D, CUNNING,

Near the frozen wen Of Brandon, itself
a geologic wonder, Is a stratum OF clay
containing brown coal and one OF the ores
Of iro.. The coal Is little more than
ehaFrel wood. The texture is not wholly
DESTROYED. Nuts and frnit abound in the
stratum, The marking on many OF the
nuts Is quite distinct even TO the naked
eye, The microscope reveals the struet'
nro 80 perfectly that we do not hesi'
itlte 10 refer some species TO an or
der ofItrces. helonging'chiefy TO the torrid
zone The buekthorn and star apple Of
the >nuth are almost the only representa-
rive, Of the order in our country, In the
ace 81 these Brandon olays,IVermont had
tropical climate and the slopes Of the
Gr,en Mountains were clad in palms and
stately sappolillas. Clay strata Of the
same age in Martha's Vineyard and in
Virginia contains the bones and teeth d
whales and the teeth Of gigantic sharks
The Brandon clay tells you that in somt
long ago the western slopes Of the Green
Mountains formed the shore Of tropical
sea and the clays Of Gay Head tell you
what leyiathans peoplcd that Tertiary
so.
These Tertiary strata--as the Brandon
hold the record Of recent period Of
earth history. Two facts viii give us b
vague conception Of Vermont history a.
ter the formation Of Brandon clay and
coil Tho State is covered with gravd
clay or sand forming what we shall cal
",he Drift" In this drift at Mt Holly
men have discovered the remains ofa
grea, elephant. The mastodon-that wa.
the namc-was third larger than tic
living elephant. In a deposit overlyinp
this bowlier Drift, in the town Of Char
lotto, the bones of whale were found
Elephants and whales once in Vermont
How vast and vague the ages since tn,
Brandon clay the age from the elephant
to the whale! Have these ages left any
record on the rocks which science may dt
cipher, !
In every town in the State, You viii
find loose, transported masses Of granite
quartz, slate or green stone. Bowlder,
we call them. BY studying the rocks In
the mountains and lodges, we can almoe,
always trace these powders back to Their
parent beds. In Nottingham, you may
see bowlder which weighs about 3,i0C
tons, and the character Of the rock
Identifies it with the Green Mountain
range which lies northwestward over IT,,
valley of Deerfeld river. Hundreds ut
powders lie strewn all over the State
which can be traced 10 mountains OF
lodges in the north or northwest. And il
almost every town, lodges of rock are
found planned down, polished and scratch.
ed-the scratches or grooves running
generally, southwark. You will find
these scratches high up on the mountains:
on Mansfield mountain, above the chin.
Some tremendous force, there, has acted
on the earth, moving southwark, crush
ing the rocks into 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 $500 feet from the
sea level In such sketch as this,
cannot give the facts which lead us to
say that this was an "ice food Since
the time of the Brandon clays, the State
has passed from tropical climate to a
polar. 1t has been under "A vast sheet OF
glacial ice When the ice period had
passed i'll was peopled by gigantic ole
plants. Then the face Of New England
New York and the Provinces sunk, a,
least five hundred feet, and part Of ths
State became the bottom of an ocear
tenanted by whales. And these change.
could not have been paroxysnal. Glacia
epochs are periodical. Provision for glaGa'
winters, desolating the earth and scourg
ing the granite into soil, is fixed as deepl,
in the constitution Of nature as the pro
vision for winter every twelvemon.h
Each is rhythmical, our winter comins
with the yearly revolution of the eaitl
in its orbit, and the glacial winter return
ing with the rhythm of the orbit from
circle to ellipse. The astronomer ha.
shown US that the earth's orbit pulses t.
and fro from circle to long cllipse, ant
L., y, Al
when the orbit is most elliptical, and III,
winters of the north hemisphere Occult il
that part Of the orbit most remote from
the sun, the north hemisphere will have
glacial epoch. l find Sir William Grow
and Sir John Herschel maintaining, from
astronomical calculations, that the las
glacial epoch closed about hundre
thousand years ago. And that is only
moment in geological time From tn
Brandon coal you read of tropical sec
and the slopes Of the Green Mountain
clad in palms and sappodillas from tn
gravel, the powders, the scored valley
and mountains, you read of glacial wiz
ter, where Vermont lay shackled in ic
MS Northern Greenland to-day from tn
Mt. Holly elephant, of land again and il
life, and from the Charlotte whale, of a
ocean and its life. Here rs successio
of events, and astronomy helps us to G.
innate the time since the last event
N,usa