New Britain herald., 1916-01-27

1 were fifty million years ago nobody l knows.
 You ask: How were the solid rock
 mountains broken, ground, and de-
 composed into this finer New Britain
 soil? How was it brought to New
 Britain? How was it laid down, solidified, and formed into the present ] shapes? What were some of the | thrilling experiences and experiences 1 unusual to us through which the vicinity of New Britain passed during | these changes?" Let us see
 God made the entire world in 1 cluding the earth and New Britain.
 He is still making the earth or ] changing it's form by means of what
 we call natural forces.
 | At one stage in the making of this
 earth, the earth's surface was com
 posed of mountains of solid igneous rock something like our granite and | trap rocks, and of valleys filled with water.
 The surfaces of these rocks were
 heated by day and cooled by night | These changes in temperature caused
 the particles of the rock to expand and contract unequally, resulting Tn tiny pieces of the rock becoming | loosened.
 The oxygen of the air united With 1 some of the elements in the rock ana thus caused the rocks themselves to decay and crumble.
 Some of the rain water soaked lnlo not only the large cracks and Jolnts
 but also into the delicate m1croscoplc | passages in every rock. This water l froze. The expansive force Of the 1 water changing to ice broke off large | T0o
 the rocks. As the larger pieces Of rock broke off, they rolled or slid
 down the mountain side breaking and grinding themselves and other rocks into still smaller particles.
 Much of the rain water ran down the slopes as streams carrying With 1t | the finer pieces of loosened rock and rolling along it's bed the larger pieces of broken rock pumping and grinding them against one another thus re- 1 ducing all particles to still smaller | ones.
 The finer material was carried by the streams until the stream reached some place where it could not flow as fast-usually some large body of water a a lake or sea-Where it was laid down in layers of gravel, sand, and mud to correspond with the shape of the bottom of the large body of water which was generally horizontal.
 In this manner the mountains of rocks were worn and broken up into small particles and carried to the bottom of the seas. They filled the seas to such great depths that the first material laid down in them was subjected to tremendous pressure due to the weight of like material a bove it. This pressure, with natural cements and heat from within the earth, changed the beds of gravel, sand, and mud into conglomerate, sandstone, and shale-that is to sedi- mentary rocks.
 During the changes just cited, the shape of the earths surface was being changed also by internal forces which caused the surface to bend, to crack, to crumple, and to rise in some places and sink in others. These changes acted on the surface of the earth beneath the sea as well as on the surface exposed to the air. On account of these internal forces, the great beds of material laid down in the sea were, in some places, lifted up until they became mountains of dry land while remnants of the original solid rock mountains were de- pressed so low that they became the bottoms of new valleys and new seas. In other place the original igneous rocks and these new sedim entary rocks were subjected to pressure, heat, and moisture which changed or rnetamorphosed them into a far different kind of a rock called meta 1norphic rock.
 These changes continued on the surface of the earth in the latitude and longitude of New Britain for an un- told number of millions of years but we are unable to find in Connecticut and identify any of the rocks formed during these two eras-the Archeo- zoc and the Proterozoic eras.
 The present New Britain was not here then. The question is "Where was New Britain at that time?" No l enc knows more than that it was scattered about the earth in an in- numerable number of places. During the next 36 million years, 1 the Paleozoic Era, New Britain spent most of it's time underneath the sea in disjointed particles changing from one place to another as the forces of nature decreed and in observing the higher invertebrates, the armored fishes of those days, and the forma- tion of some of the large coal beds.
 About the end of this era great m mountains of Alpine height were formed in the western and also in the eastern part of Connecticut by the shrinkage of the earth's interior and the crumpling of it's crust thus form ing a broad, deep valley, extending north and south through the central part of the state, now known as the Central Lowland.
 At this time, not less than 12 million years ago and at the begin ming of the MeSOgoiC Ere New Britain must have been in these mountains and in places north of