Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-27
GIANTS STEPPING STONES.


1t was the experience of the writer to fol-
low on foot this belt of bowlders, and for
miles and miles they are so thick and close
together that an active man can leap or
step from one to the other.
Over high wooded hills and deep sequest-
cred wales, where the ruffed grouse broods in
solitude and the red fox makes his home,
this belt of bowlders leads with scarcely
noticeable break across Lawrence and a part
of Butler and Mercer counties, and on up
through Venango and Crawford, and across
the State line into New York as far as Little
Valley in Cattaraugus county, where itmakes
a sudden turn and comes back again into
the wilderness of central northern Pennsyl-
vania.
On the highest SUBMITS of the mountain ms
of Sullivan, Pike and Monroe counties, the
powders of Canadian granite are scattered
with huge fragments of the Pottsville con-
glomerate, which have been elevated from
2, 500 to 5000 feet. If the ice sheet was of
sufficient depth to reach these SUBMITS,
there can be no doubt but it was of similar
thickness in Western Pennsylvania, so that
we come to the conclusion based upon in
disputable facts that at least 1000 feet of
ice once rested upon the sites of all the
towns in the northern part of the State
And not only to one State, or even one
continent, does this moraine that marks the
extreme southern limit OF the great glacier
extend, but all the way across the Northern
hemisphere it can be traced in an undulat-
ing unbroken line.
After entering the United States on the
Pacific coast it climbs the fr-clad cascades
and the snow-capped Rocky Mountains
sweeps across the great plains under the
mad Missouri, and the father of waters,
down through Illinois and Indiana, barely
touches Kentucky in Boone county, and
turning abruptly enters the Buckeye State,
which it crosses in northeasterly course
and enters Pennsylvania, as already de-
Eeribed. Leaving the American coast at
Belvidere, n. j., it plunges into the wild
Atlantic, emerging in Europe and thence
sweeping across the Russian empire crosses
Asia and enters the Pacific, making line
OF travelled bowlders extending around the
northern hemisphere.
GROUND BY A GLACIER.
In this State there are numerous interest
ing glacial phenomena worth studying. In
many places where the bed rock is exposed.
stria or scratches, caused BY fragments OF
granite adhering to the bottom of the i'm
mense moving ice sheet, as it plowed along,
may be seen. In some places the rock is
also polished and worn into uneven ridges
resembling the seams or folds on a CORFU
gated sheet iron roof. Near the fair grounds
at New Castle such stria are very prominent
where the bed rock has been exposed il the
vicinity of an old quarry. Stria and
scratches on the bed rock are seen at places
all over the glaciated part of the United
States. They generally have trend from
northeast to southwest, which was in the
direction in which the great ice sheet
moved. There are many places in Pennt
sylvanis where on account of the uneven
ness of the surface the ice had a local lat
teral motion, and in such places the stria
have given q faithful record of such glacial
excentricities that is interesting to study.
Some of the bowlders scattered along the
course OF the moraine are of immense size
One huge mass of red Canadian granite,
which would weigh probably 80 TONS, may
be seen on the hill above Mahoningtown.
Along the fringe of the bowlder belt in
Crawford county there are many rounded
masses of gneiss and granite that would
measure 2sx36 feet.
Besides these numerous bovlders Of arch