Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-10-15


knows who all the owners are but
there is memory of hatchetfac9d
New Yorker who came out here years
ago, and went home with acres
enough of it on paper to back his credit
to an almost unlimited amount had
the land been worth anything.
What made Connecticut's Sahara"
smilingly re echoed a Yale professor
the other day ''Why, that was once
the shore of New Haven harbor, and
it got left some thirty miles up IN the
woods"
The Yale man had just returned
from his summer vacation, and, as
hard study has not yet begun, he vas
ia good humor. 1--WE must go back"
said he, ito the Mesozic or middle life
period, close TO the Palaeoz0ic or most
ancient forms of life, after the time
when fossils and shells hourished,
and at the time when the footprints of
birds and great reptiles began to APP
pear. Connecticut you know, abounds
with these tellta,e tracks. About this
time not to be too definite, the sun
which is tolerably busy, if you notice
hadn't begun to get Ia his work,
not to any great extent, and this part
of the country was buried deeply In
| GLACIERS. The Connecticut river then
| used to run under the ice IN a channel
from what is now Middleton down to
the desert VIC are talking about, and
| there empty itself into what we call
| New Ravens site and It's surround
| ings were then under water, and the
headwaters of our beautiful bay were
| then in the bosom of that desert,
| thirty miles to the north Of US. Rec
oliect that this was long Time before
man was thought Of, and the earth
was peculiar sort of an institution,
populated in some quarters only with
a few species of great birds, amphibia,
and reptiles. Since then some of these
creatures probably went through the
necessary processes of evolution TO
produce the superior order of beings
| that we are"
''You are a Darwinian, then?'
"MoSt Yale men are, I reckon.
Well, you see, the glaciers, after some
hundreds Of years, began to grow IN :
settled Old Sol put on more steam,
and they finally broke out in bergs
and started for the sea. Many of
|
and struck on the formation now
known as Long Island. There is a
deal of loose sand and gravel over
there, you know; much That is barren.
This is how we know that many Of
the glaciers stopped there. When
they were lifted off from New Eng
land they foated away millions and
millions of tons of sand and stones
that had been frozen to them, and they
scraped up as much more. That is
what makes some of the mountains
about us stick out so. The valleys took
a terrible securing. One of the glacial
streams was poured out between the
great towers of east aud west rocks,
watch flank this city, cutting them
into their present prominence. An
other stream was slowed off by the
cliffs and banks at Middletewn, and
| plowed up channel to the south and
east toward Saybrook, and the Con
necticut river has run that way ever
since. Many of the icebergs thawed
out on Long Island and dropped their
sand and rocks there. They are there
still"
"What has all this to do with our
desert?'
q was going to say. Just before
the following periods of depression
and elevation, until the earth assumed
its present form, there was regular
circus going on in New Haven harbor
then up in our great sand plain. Yale
college would give all her old shoes
for an instantaneous Photographic
view Of it. Over our beautiful city
the graceful Wegalichthys swan
peacefully up to the placid headwaters
of the bay to sport among the big black
noses of the alligatorish Plesiosaurii,
which basked alternately in the water
and on shore, or occupied its leisure
moments combating its colossal rival,
that monstrous lizard, the Ichthyos
aurnr. This latter ceature, we know,
had peculiar ways of it's own, such as
causing the tide to ebb by taking a
swallow of 500 or 600 gallons of water
at a gulp, or creating tidal wave
which might be felt on the Long Isl
and shore, by jumping into the sea al
full tide. The swift but heavy>footed
Paleotherium, the giant horae of those
days. used to trOt down to the shores
of the bay and disport in It's limpid
waters. Then there were other equal
ly monstrous creatures. Some walked
as bipeds on feet that made tracks
twenty inches long and nearly as
broad, and with stride of three OF
four feet, indicating height of from
ten feet to rod. Many of the forms
of life were true reptiles Of various
kinds, and they were the ones which
scattered the bird>like, three -toed
| Il IL ~
terrible lizards, the Din osaurr, which
used to crawl about the head of the
harbor had the hinder feet three~toed.
and walked usually like men. using
their fore feet for f ghing. The great
fierce, but sloth~like Megateriums and
Megalonyxes infested the luxuriant
fern growths and mountains about
the bay and made life unpleasant fol-
their brethren the Mylodons, which
would stray up here from South
| -