History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 3

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100

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Wheat .- The soil over which we passed is as a general thing well adapted to wheat-growing, and the climate is also favorable. The first crops on burns is generally heavy and remunerating, but after a year or two the natural enemies of this valuable crop begin to multiply as on the older farms, sometimes making such inroads as to reduce the profits very materially. Hence not so much wheat is raised where there have been clearings as there is of some of the other cereals. In one or two instances on the St. John we saw very fine fields of wheat growing in healthy luxuriance in isolated clearings on top of high hills, where a "chopping" had been made in the forest and burned off for this very purpose of wheat-growing. The reason given for growing wheat in such out-of-the-way places was the fact that the midge and the fly and aphis would not find the spot for several years, and the crop would not suffer from their depredations. Still wheat is not so much cultivated as one would suppose it would be, because the other grains, such as oats and barley, are more productive, are more in demand by the lumber- men, and being, in proportion to the cost of raising, a larger and more remunerative price per bushel.

Oats and Barley are therefore the principal grain crops grown. These grow vigorously on the new lands, have but few enemies to contend with, often produce enormous crops, and sell readily at large prices.

Buckwheat .- This will grow almost spontaneously on these lands. It is a staple crop among the French or Acadian settlers. The rough variety, or "Indian wheat," as it is sometimes called, is the only kind cultivated. It is a sure crop, yields large amounts to the acre, is easily gathered and cleansed, and is much used by them as an article of diet and for fattening their hogs and poultry. It may be a matter of fancy on our part, but we thought we could see some connection between the physical energy of the farmers in that section and the crops they raise. There was an apparent listlessness and lack of physical stamina in those Acadians who cultivated little else than buckwheat for bread, compared with those who paid attention to the culture of wheat and other cereals. Whether the buckwheat diet was the cause and the de- bility the effect, or vice versa, we will not here attempt to decide. The flour or meal from this grain is much used by the settlers for fattening pork, and some of the fattest hogs we ever saw were fed principally upon buckwheat gruel.

Root Crops .- The various esculent roots, such as potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, carrots, beets in all their varieties, onions, &c., are "at home" throughout the whole extent of the region we traversed. Any amount of them can be produced, and would be produced for ex- port, did the facilities of transportation warrant their being carried to market at a reasonable expense. Not only is the crop generally large in quantity, but excellent in quality.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

Small Fruits .- Most of the small fruits grow luxuriantly in this sec- tion of the country, and their cultivation would be eminently success- ful. Strawberries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, blueberries, are all indigenous to all these lands. The wild currants, however, are not so palatable as some others, but the fact of their being native to the land if proof that the improved and cultivated varieties will find conge- nial soil and climate. Cherries and plums will also flourish well, though we could not promise that the "Black-knot" would let them alone. This singular disorder is by no means confined to civilized life. It was frequently met with far away in the forest, thirty or forty miles from any gardens of cultivated fruits, fastening itself upon the wild cherry trees and disfiguring and blighting them as severely as any ever seen in the gardens ih the oldest sections of the country.

The "high or bush cranberry" (Viburnum Opulus), and the com- mon lowland cranberry (Vaccinium Oxycoccus), are found abundantly, the first by the side of streams and swampy lands and the latter on the wet meadows and bogs.

Stock Raising .- The wild lands which we examined, are capable of making an excellent stock-growing country when cleared and laid down to grass. It is true that the length of the winters and the consequent longer time required to feed from the crib serve in the minds of some as a drawback, but there is a compensating principle in the supe- rior advantages for grass and hay during the summer season, brought about in part by the covering shelter of snow, which protects the earth and the herbage until the season is too far advanced for any injury to arise from too much freezing and thawing, during the transition from winter to summer. If it were not for the losses often occasioned by . wolves and other wild animals, the Upper Madawaska section might grow almost unlimited amounts of wool and mutton. The rich inter- vals and upland, so well adapted for forage crops, would yield ample supply for winter feeding, and the cool and breezy slopes and tops of their hills would give the best of pasturage for them. It is to be hoped that in time this important branch of husbandry will receive more attention in that part of the State, and their flocks increased as fast as is compatible with safety in the investment from beasts of prey.

The abundance of pasturage and the good condition of the cattle and horses on the few clearings now to be found along the route we travelled, is a practical demonstration that such stock may be advan- tageously raised in those townships as soon as the forest can be changed into a grass-growing field, and that can be done in two years from falling and burning of trees.

GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTY.

A vast amount of interesting matter is presented by the geology of the great Penobscot valley. It has as yet been but partially explored; but enough has been ob- served and described to enable an inquirer to form a pretty good idea of the topography and rock-structure of this county. The chief source of information is, of course, the reports made by the State Geologists-first, by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, in 1838; second, by Dr. Charles H. Hitchcock, son of the eminent scientist, Dr. Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst College, and his co-labor- ers, made in 1861-2. The following descriptions and narratives are exclusively from one or the other of these sources, and generally in the very words of the authors:

The rocky strata on which rests the tertiary formation of Bangor and Brewer are argillaceous talcose, plumbaginous and pyritiferous slates. These various slates pass into each other by imperceptible shades, so that it is extremely difficult to define their boundaries. In some places the slate rocks are charged with numerous quartz and calcareous spar veins, and they frequently contain a sufficient quantity of carbonate of lime to cause them to effervesce with acids. When the rock con- tains a large proportion of silex, it passes insensibly into quartz rock of a blue color, and occasionally beds of it are found containing a sufficient quantity of fine scales of mica to convert it into mica slate of an imperfect kind.

On the summit of Thomas's Hill, in Bangor, the slates may be seen cropping out, their upturned edges appearing above the soil. On the Kenduskeag, at a high ledge overhanging the river, may be seen several varieties presented by this rock. It is there observed to be charged with calcareous spar, and is sometimes of a green color, owing to the pres- ence of chlorite.

In the city the slate may be observed passing into quartz rock on the side of Exchange street, where the strata run E., N. E., and W. S. W., and dip to the N. N. W. 80°. On the S. W. side of the river the strata dip to the north. Near Brewer bridge they run E. by N. and dip N. by W. 70°. A little above the bridge on the south side of the Penob- scot, in Brewer, there is a cliff of argillaceous slate, which runs to the height of about eighty feet, and there the strata may be observed to run N. N. E. and S. S. W., and dip N. N. W. 65°. About half a mile south of Bangor the slate strata run N. E. and S. W., dip N. W. 60°. There are many other places in the vicinity of Bangor where these rocks may be seen, but it would be tedious to enumerate all the locali- ties. A sufficient number have been noticed to show that the whole substrata of Bangor and Brewer are composed of this class of rocks. In some cases the surface of the plumbaginous slate is glazed with plumbago or graphite, and owing to this circumstance such rocks have sometimes been mistaken for coal. The whole mass of strata which are above described, bear evident marks of having been exposed to the action of heat and pressure, while from the great variety of substances which enter into a sedimentary deposit, there would evidently result the various metamorphic varieties of stratified rock which I have described. It will be observed that all the strata now rest on their edges and are highly inclined to the horizon, and this position could not have resulted from their original deposition, for all strata which are deposited by water are arranged horizontally. Now it is clear that these rocks were deposited from water in horizontal beds, and that since that time they have been thrown up by a violent subterranean cause into their present position. These slates belong to the oldest transition formation and are generally destitute of organic remains.

The tertiary formation in Maine consists of a series of layers of clay and sand, which have been deposited by water upon the various solid rocks beneath. This deposit is evidently a sediment of clayey and silicious matter, and is arranged in regular strata showing the effect of tranquil subsidence from the waters by which it was deposited.

These beds of clay contain distinct remains of marine shell-fish in the various strata, arranged in such a manner as to evince their having lived and died exactly in the spots where we find them. This shows a slow and gradual deposition of the clay, for the shell-fish lived near the surface of the different strata, and must have had time to live, grow, and multiply in each stratum before the next was deposited.

The lower tertiary at Bangor is composed of blue clay, very ten- acious in its structure, tough, and adhesive. It contains so much veg- etable matter, derived from decomposed seaweeds, as to give it in many places the odor of marsh mud. The shells characteristic of this deposit are the Nucula, Saxicava, and Mya dehiscens.

There are a majority of recent species of shell-fish in this deposit, and hence we consider it as equivalent to the pliocene formation of Lyell. Above this deposit we come to another mass of clayey strata of a yellow color, and remarkable for the curious casts of various forms which it contains. Nearly all these casts have a long cylindrical tube running through them from one extremity to the other.

In Bangor, the greatest elevation which the tertiary clays attain is not more than 100 feet above the level of the sea, or 75 feet above the level of the Penobscot river at that place. The hill upon which the First Congregational church is built is tertiary, and is the highest point which that formation attains in Bangor. The lower portions of this clay-bed contain distinct remains of the marine shells Nucula Port- landica, Mactra, and Venus. The upper beds contain a great abun- dance of those strange cylindrical and conical casts, terminated some- times by a large bulb or tuber, which fossils resemble in their general structure the siphonia described and figured in Rozet's Geology. There are, however, in this deposit a number of different species, and their peculiar shapes have caused them to be mistaken for almost every variety of plant and fruit. There is, however, good reason to believe that they are of animal origin, and were probably once molluscous or soft animals, having but little consistency, so as not to leave any solid matter indicative of their composition.

According to the later report of Mr. Hitchcock, the lower clays of this group [the marine clays] at Bangor are very tenacious and adhe- sive, with the peculiar marine odor or marsh mud, and contain as char- acteristic shells the Nucula, Saxicava distorta, and Mya arenaria. The upper portions of the deposit are more sandy. The clayey strata are of a yellowish cast, containing numerous yellow, soft concretions of clay of a cylindrical shape, and perforated by a long tube. Ferrugin- ous and silicious sands alternate with the clays The lower portions of the upper beds contain Leda Portlandica, Mactra and Venus. The upper portions are filled with the concretions. Some of these clays in Bangor dip 10 degrees southwest, and others 15 degrees southerly.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

The highest of them is about 100 feet above the ocean. Above the clays are found coarse drift deposits.

There are beds of ferruginous and silicious sand, which here and there alternate with the upper clay-beds. In some places it is of good quality for moulding. Examples of this kind of sand may be seen on the side of Exchange street, where the strata of the clay dip to the south 25°.

In Cumberland street the lower tertiary deposit may be seen with the upper beds resting directly upon it. The strata dip to the S. W. 10°. This deposit attains an elevation of fifty or sixty feet above the river's level.

Crossing the Penobscot we enter the town of Brewer, where the same tertiary clays may be seen. A little above the bridge, onthe river's bank, occurs a high cliff of sand attaining an elevation of eighty-six feet above the high-water mark upon the Penobscot.

At the various brick-yards in this town we had an excellent opportu- nity of examining the nature of the clay and the various shells which are contained in it. They are identical with those found in Bangor.

The clay generally selected for making bricks belongs to the upper tertiary, and is of a yellow color and contains but very few marine shells. The blue clay answers very well for the same purpose, when there are not too many shells; but it is tough and hard to work.

The silicious sand found alternating with those clays is used also in brick-making. These materials are so common in Maine that little ac- count is made of their value, but they are nevertheless sources of a very considerable income. Thus, for instance, in the eight brick-yards of Brewer during 1837 no less than 3,000,000 of bricks were made and sold-1, 100,000 machine-pressed bricks were made in three of these yards during the same year.

So abundant is the brick clay in Bangor that, in digging the cellars for mnost of the buildings, a sufficiency of it is dug out to make the bricks required for the edifice, and Dr. Jackson, from whom we had these remarks, understood that this is frequently done.

Brick-makers are fully aware of the fact that, if clays contain any considerable proportion of lime, they will not answer for brick-making, since the lime is rendered caustic during the operation of burning, and when the bricks are moistened by water the lime slakes, and they crack or burst to pieces. On that account they carefully avoid any admixture of shells, since they are composed chiefly of carbonate of lime, and pro- duce the same effect.

These clays form extremely tough soils, and are liable to bake or harden by the action of the solar heat, so that the roots of plants are completely imprisoned by the hardened clay, and therefore the plant does not thrive.

In order to improve a clayey soil when it is found practicable, sand should be mixed with it, so as to break up its cohesive properties; and it often happens that hills of sand are found close at hand. After the texture of the soil is sufficiently broken up, air-slaked lime may then be used for a top-dressing, and it will be retained for a great length of time since the clay is so impermeeble to water.

It is certainly, said Dr. Jackson in 1838, worth the labor required to bring into a high state of cultivation those tracts of land which are in the immediate vicinity of the city, and their improved produce will amply repay the moderate expenditures which would be requisite for the purpose.

Above the tertiary formation we have a confused mass of rounded stones and pebbles, which bear evident proofs of their diluvial disposi- tion. The current of diluvial waters, in rushing over this district, ex- cavated deep valleys in the tertiary deposits, and transported the detri- tus far to the south. Near the court-house in Bangor may be seen beds of coarse pebbles at the base of the hill, and the sediment becomes finer as we ascend, until we meet with perfectly fine clay. This locality shows that coarse pebbles were deposited by swift-running water, while the fine sand and clay prove a gradual subsidence in the force of the current. On examining these pebbles, it will be remarked that they are mostly those composed of varieties of slate, which occur in places north of the spot where they are now found.

FROM HOLDEN TO CHARLESTON.

Dr. George L. Goodale, one of the assistants of State Geologist Hitchcock, about the year 1861 surveyed care- fully a geologic section from Mount Desert west of north and northwest across the State to the Canada line, nearly at right angles to the strata recorded. His route crossed the towns of Holden, Brewer, Bangor, Glenburn, Ken-

duskeag, Corinth, and Charleston, in this county, and the ' results of his observations are here subjoined.

Very near the boundary line between Dedham and Holden, the granite disappears and quartz rock succeeds, dipping 70° S. 70° E., as it were, beneath the granite. Some planes of a jointed structure dipped 70° S, 20° W. in this vicinity. This rock merges into silicious slate. At Graves' coffee-house, in the east part of Holden, considerable mica is present in the quartz rock, with a dip of 88° S. 60° E. Beyond this hotel the rock is very much contorted, and a local variation in the dip 75° N. 60° W. But the real northwesterly dip is apparent near A. B. Farrington's house, two miles west. Here we have an argillo-mica- ceous rock dipping 50° N. 40° W., and a few miles further the ledges are entirely quartz rock as far as the middle of Holden, dipping 65º N. 40° W. Cleavage planes are also present in abundance, dipping, 80° S. E. We regard all the rocks mentioned thus far, away from the granite as essentially one formation of quartz rock and forming an anticlinal axis. The rock in the centre of the axis is somewhat micaceous, and more nearly resembles the rocks west of Holden village. If this is the true order of things, then we have found a quartz rock underlying the great mass of schists between Holden and Dover. Hence, if future researches shall reveal occasional bands of quartz rock among these schists, especially if they have an anticlinal form, we shall have a safe criterion to inform us respecting the number of foldings in the whole area. We do not suppose the more micaceous axis can be of precisely the same age with the micaceous rocks to the westward, because it un- derlies them in association with quartz.

We suspect that this quartz rock is in the continuation of the quartz rock of the Taconic series in Belfast, described in a previous part of the report. That was associated with schists just like this, and we find on a comparison of various disconnected observations made between the two places, that a quartz rock, more or less obscure, can be traced with its associate schists all the way from Belfast to Holden. This is a dis- covery of some importance, as will be seen hereafter.

ARGILLO-MICA SCHIST.

We next come to the largest and widest-spread of any formation in the State, -to a rock that would receive different names from different geologists. It would be called clay slate, talcose schist, or mica schist, according as the observer happened to inspect different portions of it. Last year we ranked it all as clay state, specifying many localities where talcose and micaceous varieties abounded. But this year, after a further examination of this rock, we shall call it argillo-micaceous schst, coloring it on the map as mica schist. Inspection of all the var- ieties discloses the presence of minute scales of mica. They are found even in the roofing slate of Brownville, which is associated with the schists, and by their presence throw light upon the mineral structure of the whole series, showing it to be micaceous rather than talcose. What we described as one formation of clay slate last year, we now divide into two, the clay slate proper and the argillo-micaceous schist.

The manner in which the boundaries of this subdivision were sug- gested to us is quite interesting and valuable, as indicating the direction to be taken in studying these rocks in future. We possessed a series of observations on the position of the strata, crossing the whole argil- laceous belt in several places, and mostly radiating from Bangor. Upon comparing these sections with one another, we found them to agree es- sentially at the same distances from Bangor, or from the southeast side of the formation. The material from which we drew is mostly con- tained in our last year's report. We there described a section from Bangor to Patten; another branching off at Mattawamkeag up the East Branch of the Penobscot; another from Bangor to Brownville. This year we explored one from Bangor to Moosehead Lake; and also an- other from Shirley to Brighton. At Bangor the dip is northwesterly, but at a few miles' distance on every route it changed to southeasterly, thus making a synclinal axis. This synclinal line, then, we found to run (so far as our meagre observations allowed us to judge) from the mouth of Sunkhaze stream in Milford westerly through the north parts of Oldtown and Pushaw Lake, thence curving southwesterly it passes west of Kenduskeag village, and probably to Carmel and N. E. Dix- mont. Upon the east side of this line the dip is northwesterly, on the line of our principal section, as far as Holden Center; and upon the west side the dip is southeasterly as far as the north part of Charleston, thus making an enormous basin twenty-nine miles wide, whose thick- ness must be seven miles on the lowest estimate. The anticlinal line west of the first synclinal was first observed near Passadumkeag village, and can be traced westerly through Edinburg, Lagrange, and Brad- ford, till we find it rising into a range of mountains which continue through Charleston, Garland, and Dexter. This is a very distinct axis,

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

as it is coincident with a mountainous range for so great a distance. It runs toward the mass of granite in Enfield, which most probably was forced up along the anticlinal line, as the rock would naturally be weak- est there. Very likely the anticlinal described last year in Weston is the continuation of this anticlinal line.

The next basin is very narrow, and the rock is more argillaceous than in the previous basin. The synclinal line runs along the valley of the Piscataquis river, even as far up as Parkman, and then it must run on the west side of Penobscot river a great distance. We think that its position is indicated near the Five Islands in Winn, by the change in the dip. Of course these lines must extend further in both direc- tions than we have in both indicated, but we point out the lines only so far as we have knowledge of them.

Next we come to another change in the dip, with clay slates prevail- ing on one side and argillo-mica schists upon the other. Hence we do not regard it as anticlinal, but a change in the dip incident to different formations, the slates overlying the schists, perhaps unconformably. This line, which upon our large map we have for the present estab- lished as the boundary line between the two formations, is first recog- nized in the northeast, in No. I R. 5, in Aroostook county, on the Aroostook road. It can be traced through Molunkus, the southeast corner of Medway (formerly called Nickatou), thence in a straight line to Medford, when it takes somewhat of a westerly course through Mi- lo, Sebec, Foxcroft, Guilford, and Abbott. Here it resumes the southwesterly direction, and we have traced it through Kingsbury, Brighton, and Bingham, to the Kennebec river. The axes on the vari- ous radiating sections correspond with one another no further than to this boundary, but the rock on the northwest side of this line is most entirely clay slate, and is the only belt in Maine from which roof- ing slate is now obtained. The variations in dip in this clay-slate for- mation we conceive to be due to various causes more or less local, and not to be treated of here. Scarcely anything has been discovered dur- ing the survey which has given us greater pleasure than these axial lines. It is a very important onward step in the progress of our knowledge of Maine rocks, and a faint shadow of what would be de- veloped by a series of comprehensive parallel sections.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 3

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co. Number of Pages: 1100

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100