Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-03-11

we know, toward something to come in fu-
ture ages, of which we can have no concep-
ton. But had in mind, in commencing, a
conclusion in regard to the quality OF the soil
as to fertility, which naturally follows from
the facts that have been stated. It has been
gradually becoming more fertile from natural
causes, and these causes are many Of them
still in operation not uniformly and con-
stantly, not at all times and places, but with
out exceptions that impair the rule. The
products of the soil were never before nearly
so great in quantity as in this age. They were
never before nearly so excellent in quality.
Nature has had and still has numerous
agents at work preparing the soil for the nu-
triton Of plants. The powerful agencies that
in former times produced some of the mark
ed changes in the surface of the earth-that
ground down mountains and scooped out val
leys, were the breaking-up plows. One Of
these, that may have helped prepare the soil
of Vermont for the food of plants has been
described by Prof. Seelye as the "Original
Vermont Plow," meaning the great glaciers
that are supposed to have moved down across
the state from the north, taking up and carry
ing great fragments of rock, with small stones,
clay, sand, and gravel, blowing, grinding, and
crushing, as it slowly moved with its under sur
face borne downby the weight ofseveral thous-
and feet of ice above. This great pillow, If it was
q glacier of such thickness, must have been
blowing night and day for several hundred
years, as the movement of glacier is slow.
That q considerable portion of the soil, grav-
ell stones, clay and loose material everything
the solid rock, has been moved from the
northward by some powerful agency, there
can be no doubt. The evidence of IL is con-
spicuous ON the hills in this vicinity, where
we may see the planished surface, scratches
and growing on the rocks, with numerous
rounded boulders Of different character from
the rock over which they rest, and frequent
ly entirely different from any rock, in place,
in the neighborhood.
Two examples occurring near us, may be
mentioned In building the narrow guage
railroad, a boulder found about three miles
below this village was cut up and used in
making culvert. 1t was about ten feet in
length, composed of a peculiar green granite,
very compact and uniform in structure and
entirely different from any granite found in
this section. Another large rounded boulder
about ten feet in diameter, that might have
been seen from the travelled road between
this place and Fayetteville, lying within
few feet of the railroad track, was also cut up
and used in building culvert. 1t was
coarse gray granite containing fattened nod
ules of MICA rather poor specimen Of a
rare kind of granite of great interest to
biologists.
This boulder, like the other, must have
been taken from its original place and
brought from a considerable distance, as no
granite of the same kind is very near. On
the hill seven or eight hundred feet above
the place where these boulders laid, may be
seen scratches and grooves on the rocks
marks of the drift. Different theories have
been advanced by biologists in accounting for
these phenomena but all agree that ice,
either in the form of glaciers or icebergs,
must have been the principal cause. Agassiz
maintained the theory that an immense gla-
cier or sea of ice of sufficient depth to fill all
the valleys and to cover all the mountains,
moved down from the polar regions across
the continent. This sea of ice he estimates
TO have been in northern New England, two
or three miles in depth. If we imagine
mass of solid ice reaching upward 10, 900 feet
above the surface where this village now
stands and covering the country, it seems a
wide step to the tropical climate that the
character of fossils found in Vermont and
other northern states indicate once existed
Among them are the fossil elephant exhumed
at Mt. Holly in making a cut for the railroad,
and the elephant dug up at Cohoes, N. Y,
and now preserved in the state collection at
the agricultural rooms in Albany.
The wonderful changes that have been
wrought on the earths surface within q COM
paratively recent time-as the geologist reck-
ons timo-hsve some striking illustrations in
several of the towns of Windham county.
The beds of several ancient streams or rivers
are found on or near the summit of high
hills, on dry land, far from any brook or rill.
On hill in the west part of Newfane, and on
another hill in the south part of Wardsboro,
and again near the summit of mountain in
Stratton, the beds of ancient rivers or large
streams are shown by the deep pot holes
worn in the solid rocks. The banks of these
ancient streams, with the surrounding hills
that enclosed them, may have been worn
away by abrasion or the gradual erosion OF
their surfaces, thus converting the solid
rocks into food for plants. Nature is con-
stantly pulverizing the soil, by both mechan
ical and chemical forces, and fitting it for the
nutriment of plants. The earth, fitted first
by such agencies for the growth of plants
has received all vegetation back to itself
perhaps with interest drawn from the atmos
phere, for thousands of ages. Is there not q
progressive fertility in the soil 4? Look bach
to the solid crust of the earth that bore no
plant and fed no animal. From this begin.
ming, through innumerable ages the surface
of the earth has been in course of prepare
ton for what we now behold, man, the
the fields of grain, the profusion of flower
and fruit, the beauty of the landscape, tn,
cattle feeding on thousand hills. Who car
tell US when this progressive force or law o
nature, which was never more active than il
1884, will cease
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