St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1895-08-24

ORIGIN OF THE eowLoERs.

ORIGIN OF THE eOWL0ERS.
W h9se the "Hard Heads' That Annoy the
Northern Farmer Come fr00.
Almost everywhere throughout the
nOrthern half of the United States, rs
also in Canada and Europe, the farmer
finds lying upon the soil, or buried
within it, many large rounded stones.
or bowldcrs. In cultivating his fields
he finds it necessary to dig these out
and haul them away on his stone
boat" or by some other means to get
them out of the way. They often
come handy for use in the foundations
of barns or other buildings, for wall
ing wells, and other purposes. But in
some places they are SO numerous that
in order to get them out of the way of
the plow and the reaper they are built
into walls for fences, or even piled
up in heaps in the middle of the field.
Whether the farmer considers them
rs convenient and substantial building
material or only IS troublesome
nuisance, the question must often have
come to him as to where all these
''hard-heads'' come from. Were they
created on the spot, and SO have been
here ever since the beginning? Or did
they grow here Just as the trees grow
where we find them?
But stones do not grow. they have
NO means of growth. The only change
in size which they undergo is TO be-
come smaller. by crumbling or wear
ing away. They might have been Gre
ated in the place and form in which
they are found. no doubt, just IS easi-
ly as in any other place and form; but
we shall find that they are not SO ere
ated. The soil that is accommodating
at the mouth of the Mississippi river
might have been created where it is
now. The snow might have been Gre
ated or formed on the ground just as
We find it lying several inches or feet
in depth in the winter. The dry
leaves that we find covering the
ground in the forests might have been
created just in the place and condition
in which we find them.
But in all these cases we know that
while the Creator might have done
these things in the manner suggested,
He has not seen At to do sO. but has
used some different method in each
case. The earth that is acnumulating
at the mouth Of the Mississippi has
been brought down that stream for
hundreds and even thousands of miles
In the form of sand and mud; the
snow is formed in the upper air and is
often carried for miles by the wind be-
fore it finally finds its resting place
upon the surface of the earth; the dry
leaves now lying upon the ground
once formed the green foliage on the
trees for which they have fallen. So
also it is with the bowlders, they are
only fragments of rock that have at
some time been broken of from solid
lodges or cliffs. and have in some. man.
ner been carried or transport to the
place where we now find them.
In the case of the leaves and the
snow and the sand we can watch them
in their course as they are being
waited or foated from the place in
which they were formed to the place
where they are brought to rest But
who, you ask, ever saw . huge bowlder
being carried by any such natural
means from = ledge, perhaps, hundreds
of miles away? For we often find them
at such distances from any ledge from
which they could have been broken.
That is not at all an unreasonable or
improper question to ask. But rs a
matter of fac. it was the watching of
bowlders of all sizes being thus carried
from their native cliffs that furnished
the explanation as to their origin.
IN the higher valleys of the Alps
and other lofty mountain regions
there are fields of snow and ice
that never melt away, even dur
ing the warmest summer. At their
lower edge they melt suSiciently
to produce considerable streams of
water, that help to form the Rhone
and other similar rivers. But they
Are renewed year by year by the heavy
snowfall of winter, and especially on
the upper part Of the field near the
Of the mouptaina This par
tial melting in the summer and 1t the
lower edge, followed by freezing and
the addition of great weight of snow
in the winter, keeps the snow con-
changing to ice, and also keeps
the mass steadily moving downward
and outward into the valley below.
which affords its only outlet.
Upon these glaciers, or moving fields
of snow ice, broken rocks are constantly
falling from the mountain cliffs that
tower above them. These rocks are
thus carried onward year by year, but
not always riding upon the back of the
glacier. They sink down into the
mass, or fall into the crevasses or
cracks that are formed in the ice, and
thus they usually find their way
eventually to the bottom of the glacier.
But they are not allowed to halt there,
any more than while riding upon the
surface. The only difference is that
they are scraped and scratched and
partly worn away by the terrible grind
ing they receive while being pushed
along under the enormous weight of
ice. In this manner their sharp cor
ners are worn OF. and they become
more or less rounded in form.
As long rs the ice in which they are
buried continues to move these bowl
ders must continue to move with il.
But as fast rs they reach the point 1t
which the ice is melted they are
dropped upon the ground and there
they remain-unless they are small
to be carried on by the stream Of
water that is always flowing out from
the front edge of the glacier.
While there are NO known glaciers
1t present that are large enough in
extent to carry these fragments of
rock more than . few miles from the
cliffs from which they were broken,
there is the clearest possible evidence
in such countries rs Switzerland that
they have carried them to enormously
greater distances ut some time in the