Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
In 1852, accompanied by Mr. James Hall, state geologist of New York,
author of many able and well-known works on geology and palaeontology,
I examined the glacial drift and erratics of the county of Berkshire,
Massachusetts, and those of the adjoining parts of the state of New
York, a district about 130 miles inland from the Atlantic coast and
situated due west of Boston in latitude 42 degrees 25 minutes north.
This latitude corresponds in Europe to that of the north of Portugal.
Here numerous detached fragments of rock are seen, having a linear
arrangement or being continuous in long parallel trains, running nearly
in straight lines over hill and dale for distances of 5, 10, and 20
miles, and sometimes greater distances. Seven of the more conspicuous
of these trains, from 1 to 7 inclusive, Figure 50, are laid down in the
accompanying map or ground plan.*
(* This ground plan, and a farther account of the Berkshire
erratics was given in an abstract of a lecture delivered by
me to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, April 27, 1855
and published in their Proceedings.)
It will be remarked that they run in a north-west and south-east
direction, or almost transversely to the ranges of hills A, B, and C,
which run north-north-east and south-south-west. The crests of these
chains are about 800 feet in height above the intervening valleys. The
blocks of the northernmost train, Number 7, are of limestone derived
from the calcareous chain B; those of the two trains next to the south,
Numbers 6 and 5, are composed exclusively in the first part of their
course of a green chloritic rock of great toughness, but after they have
passed the ridge B, a mixture of calcareous blocks is observed. After
traversing the valley for a distance of 6 miles these two trains pass
through depressions or gaps in the range C, as they had previously done
in crossing the range B, showing that the dispersion of the erratics
bears some relation to the acutal inequalities of the surface, although
the course of the same blocks is perfectly independent of the more
leading features of the geography of the country, or those by which
the present lines of drainage are determined. The greater number of the
green chloritic fragments in trains 5 and 6 have evidently come from the
ridge A, and a large proportion of the whole from its highest summit d,
where the crest of the ridge has been worn into those dome-shaped
masses called "roches moutonnees," already alluded to, and where several
fragments having this shape, some of them 30 feet long, are seen in
situ, others only slightly removed from their original position, as if
they had been just ready to set out on their travels. Although smooth
and rounded on their tops they are angular on their lower parts, where
their outline has been derived from the natural joints of the rock. Had
these blocks been conveyed from d by glaciers, they would have radiated
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