USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Hingham > History of the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 3
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There is evidence that both vegetable and animal life existed in this early time, but only in its lowest forms.
PALEOZOIC TIME ; SILURIAN AGE ; PRIMORDIAL PERIOD. - The rocks of this period were formed from the wearing away of those of Archæan Time, and the reconstruction of the material into new strata. Great interest is felt in these because, so far as clearly shown, they contain impressions of the remains of the first organ-
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Tertiary. Adopted from old classifica- tion, when the terms Primary, Second- ary, and Tertiary embraced all the rock formations.
Quaternary. From Latin quatuor, four, applied to strata following Tertiary (third).
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History of Hingham.
ized forms of life that have left impressions, the characters of which can be deciphered. All that can be known of the early species, therefore, vegetable or animal, must apparently be learned from what has been, or may yet be discovered in them. The estimated duration of this period, taking Thomson's basis as shown, by the table, is nearly 3,000,000 years. The forms of life preserved by the strata are all of course marine, and consist largely of impressions of Trilobites, - animals that lived in the shallow waters of the coasts, upon the muddy and sandy surfaces below, and finally became entombed in their substance. There were many species of these animals in these and later formations, but they all became extinct before the close of the Carboniferous Period. The fortunate discovery by Prof. Wm. B. Rogers of the remains of some of these in the slate rocks of Braintree, furnished proof that a part at least of the slate of the Boston Basin belongs to the Primordial Period.
We will now pass over the immense time in the history of the earth, numbering many millions of years, during which other rocks of the Silurian and of the Devonian Ages were deposited beneath the sea to the enormous thickness of one hundred thousand feet, all abounding in forms of life, as scarcely more than a mention can be made of any period that has not left mementos of its pas- sage over or about this particular territory.
CARBONIFEROUS AGE. - Of the Carboniferous Age, it may be said that notwithstanding the contrary views hitherto held by geologists, it is yet by no means settled that the Conglomerates and Associated rocks of Hingham are not formations of this age rather than of the Primordial Period of the Silurian Age. However this may be, it is certain that a considerable portion of the rock formations near and south of Hingham, bordering Rhode Island and extend- ing into that State, is made up of the deposits of the Carboniferous Age, embracing not only Conglomerates of like character as those of the Boston Basin, but also large beds of Anthracite with the accompanying shales and fossil plants, demonstrating them to be contemporaneous with those of the great coal-fields of Pennsyl- vania and other regions of the continent. This fact suggests, what it is well to bear in mind, that the temperature of the region we inhabit, as well as that of the whole North, was then very much warmer than in succeeding ages, sufficiently so to allow the growth of tropical plants of which coal itself is a product, not only in the Alleghany and the western coal regions, but in those of Massachusetts, of Cape Breton, and of the Arctic Circle. It is certainly a striking fact that upon the surface of this town, where in after ages rested for thousands of years ice of great thickness, flourished tree-ferns, and other plants of forms now found only in the torrid zone; but there can be no question that this was the case. The rock formations of the Carbon- iferous Age measure in thickness about 22,000 feet, and the esti- mated time for their deposit on Thomson's basis is about 4,000,000
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The Geology of Hingham.
years. It was not until after the close of this age that the Alleghany Mountains were elevated, bearing up with them the Carboniferous matter which now makes up the great body of the coal found in their strata.
To the Carboniferous Age succeeded the Triassic, Jurassic, and the Cretaceous Periods of Mesozoic Time, and the several periods of the Tertiary Age in Cenozoic Time. It was during the Creta- ceous Period of the former, and the periods of the latter that deposits were made along the eastern and southern shores of North America, forming strata which by subsequent elevation now compose a considerable part of the middle coast States, and nearly the whole of those that border the Gulf of Mexico, and it was, too, during these periods that a large portion of the strata now composing the Rocky Mountains were formed beneath the waters. These mountains did not attain to their present elevation until near the latter part of the Tertiary Age. The Reptilian and Tertiary Ages passed without leaving any traces now recognizable on the territory of Hingham.
We have now reached a period which has received the name of Glacial, and which calls for particular notice, because nowhere perhaps can results of the extraordinary phenomena attending it be more readily seen than in Hingham. The extent of the change made upon the whole surface of the land north of Pennsylvania can never be fully realized, and it was probably as great over this town as over a like area anywhere. What were the distinguish- ing characteristics of this period ? We have seen that in a pre- ceding age, when the coal of the great coal-fields of the continent was laid down, the climate everywhere north was tropical. We now find it to have changed to one of great cold, and that this continued, if we may rely on the estimate made by Thomson, more than 350,000 years. Life became extinct under its influ- ence, and over nearly the whole land north of Pennsylvania there came to be a covering of ice several thousand feet in thickness, which, governed by the same influences that affect the great bodies of ice in glacial regions at the present time, moved steadily and majestically towards the south, throwing off icebergs where it reached the sea, as is the case with the glaciers of Greenland now, and gradually melting and thinning out as it approached warmer latitudes on the land surface.
Through the investigations of the Rev. G. Frederick Wright, Mr. Warren Upham, and others, we now have certain knowledge of a great part of the boundary line of the glacial sheet over the land, from as far west as Illinois to the Atlantic, this being well- marked by the morainic deposits of the debris brought from northern regions in and upon the ice, and deposited at its margin. Want of space will not permit the writer to dwell upon these, but the reader is assured that their character cannot be mistaken. The terminal moraine has a very irregular course east from Illi- nois, passing through the States of Indiana, Ohio, a part of Ken-
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History of Hingham.
tucky, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, reaching the ocean at Perth Amboy, where it is lost to sight. It is not difficult, however, to- trace the limit of the ice sheet east from the land. The evidence by morainic deposits shows its front at one period to have been over Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, from which it unquestionably extended far out over the ocean in a northeast direction, the shallowness of the waters at the Great Fishing Banks being due to the immense deposits from the glacier.
What brought about the great change that converted a large area of the earth from one teeming with life to one where the. silence of death reigned supreme, we may never certainly know. If not due entirely to the elevation of the land in the northern regions of the earth, which occurred in the later Tertiary Age, there can be no doubt but that this was a potent factor, for the Glacial Period was one of high latitude elevation ; nor can we fully account for the great subsequent reconversion of the same area, or much of it, to become again the abode of life after long ages of desolation. It is only with the results of the action of the ice upon the surface of the land that we have now to concern our- selves, and it is absolutely necessary to understand these in order to have the slightest appreciation of observed phenomena in Hing- ham as well as elsewhere over the North, consequent upon the great ice movement during the long period of its domination. One certainly was the bearing forward of a great part of all the loose material beneath its mass formed by the disintegration of the rocks, and redistributing it on the line of its advance south. Hence, a considerable portion of the rocky masses, bowlders, and pebbles, as well as of the gravelly and sandy material in which they are imbedded, now forming the surface upon the hills and fields of New England, have been borne from the North; and whenever such bowlders and pebbles are of marked character, they can generally be traced to the locality of their formation. A good instance of this is seen in the bowlders and pebbles of porphyritic iron ore, found everywhere between Cumberland Hill, R. I., and the shores of Rhode Island, south, all on the line of the ice movement, - the masses, as might be expected, being generally of smaller and smaller size as the distance increases from their source, where a great bed of this peculiar ore exists in situ. The quantity of earth-substance moved forward over the surface must have been enormous, as is shown by the fact that many of the hills of the glaciated territory are composed en- tirely of it, and in the southeast of this State, over a large area, the rocky strata are buried beneath a covering of it to the depth of three hundred feet. Another result of the movement was the wearing down, the planing, so to speak, of the rocky surfaces ex- posed to the great friction of the detrital material carried forward under the mass of the superincumbent ice. Whenever bowlders such as are seen everywhere in our New England soil, or even large pebbles, were torn off from the places of their origin,
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The Geology of Hingham.
and became imbedded in the substance of the glacier below, they must necessarily have exerted an immense gouging force as they were borne on; and consequently we see everywhere upon the rock-surfaces of New England deep traces of their passage, always showing the direction of the great glacial movement. These generally are found to be not far from south, 40° east, in this region. Many thousands of years have elapsed since these were traced, but still they are distinctly visible.
The Glacial Period of intense cold, of the wearing away by the ice of the rocks over which it passed, of the excavation of valleys by its action, at length came to an end, and was followed by the Champlain Period. This period was of marked contrast with the preceding. It was one of great depression of the whole surface of the North in both hemispheres, and this was probably the cause, partly at least, of the great increase in the temperature which led to the melting away of the ice sheet that had for an immense period covered the earth. Land that now stands at considerable height was below the level of the sea, as shown by forms of marine life found at various elevations in northern New England, where it is evident they lived and died when submerged in the waters. Contrary to views that have been hitherto presented, this depression did not affect the surface to any considerable degree south of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The occurrence of shells and other marine remains in elevated posi- tions above the sea, often cited as proofs of depression, at Point Shirley near Boston, and at Sancati Head, Nantucket, has been satisfactorily demonstrated to have been the result of the scoop- ing up from the bottom of the adjacent waters by the ice-sheet the material forming the Till Hills, in which such remains have been found. In these hills the shells do not occur, as in Maine and elsewhere north, in beds, showing the places they occupied in life, but scattered indiscriminately throughout the mass of ma- terial, and generally in a fragmentary condition.
The degree of subsidence north, as shown by the heights at which remains of marine life have been found, increased with the latitude. On the coast of Maine the highest stated is 217 feet above the sea ; at Lake Champlain near 400 feet ; on the St. Lawrence near Montreal, 500 feet ; about the Bay of Fundy, near 400 feet; on the Labrador coast, from 400 to 500 feet; and at places in the Arctic regions, 1,000 feet. These figures are taken from Dana.
As the glacier melted, great floods poured over and from it, and the stones, sand, and gravel in it were distributed over the land. It was a period of deposition of earthy matter from the ice, and of subsequent redistribution of portions of it by the waters. The direct deposits as now found are not stratified, or but very partially so, and are known as diluvium, while those which fol- lowed, the result of the action of the waters in redistributing the material, are known as alluvium. It was in this period that
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History of Hingham.
were formed the terraces so common along the borders of some of the river valleys of New England, and of the kames, so-called, of which notice will be presented hereafter.
Following the passing away of the ice-sheet came another great change over the area which it had so long occupied. The sun's rays again rested upon and warmed the surface of the land, ren- dering it a fit abode for the manifold forms of vegetables and animals that appeared upon its remodelled hills and plains. The green herb and the fruit-bearing tree sprang up, and adorned the landscape with beauty. Rivers again teemed with life, birds and insects hovered in the air, and beasts small and large trod the earth ; while among these last walked with majestic mien Man, the crowning glory of all created forms.
The remains of life of this period, and even of the Glacial pre- ceding it, demonstrate the existence of a great number of species of enormous size, such as were not found in either earlier or later eras. Of course, while the ice covered the surface but few forms could maintain life within its area, but it was otherwise south of its margin, and when it had passed away huge monsters roamed over the surface, spreading from more southern regions far to- wards the Arctic Circle in both hemispheres. In Europe, elephants of great size, gigantic deer, tigers surpassing the Bengal of the present day, horses and oxen proportionally large, and many other beasts occupied the land in vast numbers ; while in America there were elephants, mastodons, horses, beavers, and sloths, including the megatherium, the mylodon, and megalonyx, -all of colossal dimensions compared with the animals of like character now living. But of far greater importance than all else, Man as stated, undoubtedly appeared. With feeble frame he came among races of gigantic stature and strength ; but he came to wield do- minion over them, and to subdue and conquer by other power than that hitherto possessed on earth. It is not known precisely when Man first appeared, but the evidence is strong that it was in a pre-glacial period, as implements undoubtedly of human con- struction have been found in transported material from deposits of an anterior date.
Again, a great change in the surface level of the North, and increased cold followed in Europe by a second glacial era, which by its sudden advance carried death to many of the animals that had found a home far north in the warmer Champlain Period. This is shown by the carcasses of elephants, and the perfect preservation of their flesh in Aretic ice. The change must have been not only sudden, but the cold extremely severe to account for these encased remains, and for other phenomena, such as the extension of the range of the reindeer and other Northern species to southern France where their bones have been found abund- antly. This, and the advance of ice again over parts of northern Europe gave the name of Reindeer, or Second Glacial Epoch to the early part of the Recent Period. There is no conclusive evidence
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The Geology of Hingham.
of a second advance of the glacier on the American continent, though there is abundant proof of great refrigeration in tempera- ture, which was probably the principal cause of the extinction of most of the large animals, the elephants, mastodons, horses, and other species before mentioned, that roamed over the northern plains.
The modern era of the period, that of the reign of Man, shows that the same causes that have produced changes of level of the surface and of temperature are yet active. There is evidence of the gradual subsidence of Greenland, and that it has been sinking slowly for centuries, and that a like change has been going on along a great part of the eastern coast of the United States. On the other hand it is shown that in other regions there has been a gradual elevation. The formation of rocks still goes on as in former times; the ocean depths receive as in past periods the remains of siliceous and calcareous shells from the multitudinous forms that live in its waters ; the coral animals yet build up their reefs to become part of the strata of the dry land of the future; volcanic action continues as of old to add to the surface its lavas, and vegetable life as in earlier ages of the earth's history, by ac- cumulation of peat and other plant structure, contributes some- thing towards future formations.
Having thus by a rather elaborate preliminary essay presented what the writer has deemed essential to an understanding of the Geology of Hingham, by those who have not made the earth's history a study, he proceeds to remark upon the phenomena observable within the town limits, referring to what is exterior only as far as may be necessary for a clearer idea of the subject.
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History of Hingham.
GEOLOGY OF HINGHAM.
THE geology of Hingham, particularly that of the northern part of the town, though interesting, is of too abstruse a character to be even partially understood except by those who have made the rock-formations of the vicinity of Boston a study ; and its elucida- tion will require on the part of the writer much reference to what is exterior to the limits of the town. That of the greater portion of its territory inland is more simple, exhibiting Granite as the prevailing rock, but having some areas of Diorite, and occasion- ally dikes of Diabase, which cut through the others, and appear at the surface as black or dark-green rocks traceable often for considerable distances, having a width sometimes of but few inches, but frequently of several feet. Petrosilex is also found associated with the granite, but in very limited exposures.
GRANITE.
This has been mentioned as the prevailing rock of a large por- tion of the town. It seems necessary to first define what is meant by the name before referring to its particular exposures on the surface and its variation in character. Until quite recently geolo- gists called all such rocks as were composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica, granite ; using the term " syenite " to distinguish those which had hornblende in the place of mica. When all four min- erals were found together, the rock was called hornblendic granite. The advance of the science of lithology has led to more strict defi- nition. Now the use of the name " syenite " is restricted to rocks composed of orthoclase (one of the group of feldspars), or ortho- clase and hornblende, or orthoclase and mica ; while the essential constituents of granite, as now defined, are quartz and orthoclase. If to these mica is added it is called micaceous granite, and if hornblende, hornblendic granite. Hence the rock of Hingham, as well as of Quincy, is granite, and not syenite, as it is often designated.
Over the whole of South Hingham and the greater part of Hingham Centre, wherever there are exposures of rock above the surface it is granite, excepting only the material of the dikes which are frequently found within it, and which will be hereafter
The J. Bonne
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The Geology of Hingham.
mentioned. Granite too underlies the whole of the areas named now covered over by the clays, the sands, and the gravels of the glacial period. It also extends north to the shore on Weir River, and to the coast line of the harbor on the eastern shore, where it is found bordering the channel from near the steamboat landing to Martin's Well, and showing itself prominent upon the adjacent uplands. It appears also within the harbor upon the small island known as Button Island. The rock varies in different localities, being sometimes found composed entirely of quartz and ortho- clase, but sometimes with mica added, making it a true micaceous granite. The color varies generally with that of the orthoclase, which is often of a reddish hue. Quartz veins are not infrequent in it, but these rarely furnish crystals ; some, however, of fine amethystine tint were obtained a few years since from the rock of Old Colony Hill.
The granite of Hingham is generally too much fissured to afford good blocks for building, though there are locations where, if better situated for cheap transportation of material, stone might be quarried to advantage. Near Long Bridge Lane a quarry was opened and worked for several years by Mr. Israel Whitcomb, and much excellent stone was obtained and made use of for local requirements.
There are many places where fine red granite is found, but the color is not often persistent over any considerable area, and the stone is not sufficiently free from cracks to admit of good blocks being procured, though possibly these might disappear to some extent at a small distance from the surface.
The exposures of granite are very numerous. A few that differ from the rest in general character are here mentioned : -
In Lasell Street, reddish with epidote.
In Central Street, red and flesh-colored from the tint of the orthoclase.
In Union Street, with flesh-colored orthoclase.
In Thayer Street, red, nearly binary.
In French Street, flesh-colored, with mica and hornblende.
In Whiting Street, very fine structure, light-colored and micaceous, with very numerous joints.
In Summer Street, red, mostly binary.
In Emerald Street, red, mostly binary.
In Beechwood Street, decomposing.
In Thaxter Street, finely porphyritic with red orthoclase crystals.
Specimens of these may be found in the collection of the Public Library.
DIORITE.
Diorite, as mentioned, is found within the region generally occupied by the granite rocks, but it nevertheless may be noticed that in Hingham it is not found far from the sedimentary forma-
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History of Hingham.
tions, no exposure of it having been observed in all the region south of Hingham Centre. This rock contains necessarily but one constituent, a triclinic feldspar, usually oligoclase, but it has generally associated with it hornblende. Sometimes mica is also found in it and not infrequently particles of quartz.
In Hingham, when composed of feldspar and hornblende in nearly equal proportions and when the grains of each are clearly perceptible, it appears not unlike granite, but having no quartz as a general constituent it may be readily distinguished. In limited areas it is found almost entirely of feldspar, when it presents itself simply as an impure white rock, its character being conse- quently more obscure.
One of the best exposures on a highway of the town of typical diorite occurs in Summer Street, on the right side going south from the railroad crossing, and within 100 feet of Kilby Street. It juts into the road from the adjoining field, and presents itself with a smooth, rounded face about twelve feet across, on which the two minerals, feldspar and hornblende, are well defined and plainly visible. Two other exposures may be seen between the one men- tioned and Kilby Street, and in the field back from the road are several ridges of it.
Another interesting exposure of diorite on a highway is to be found on the surface at the top of Fort Hill, just front of the cemetery. Here it is cut through by numerous narrow veins of a whitish granite, which by distortion and separation of parts afford an interesting study for the observer. The rock of this locality should not be disturbed, as there is no other known instance in town where granite can be seen so clearly to have been intruded in veins into the diorite. The exposure here, too, is interesting from the glacial stria which may be plainly seen upon its surface.
Diorite occurs abundantly on East, Kilby, Weir, and Hull streets.
Going northeast from Horticultural Hall on East Street, some rocky elevations appear on the left side of the road which are known as Andrew Heights. The rocks of the slope facing the street are diorite, with the exception of an intervening portion of granite. This last rock also appears on the land opposite the diorite back from the road. Beyond the heights mentioned, all, or nearly all, the rocks of the street and of land contiguous are diorite until Kilby Street is passed.
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