USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Manchester > Contributions to the history of Derryfield, New Hampshire > Part 2
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Three powerful, ice-fed streams, terrible in their energy, are forcing their way southward, carving channels as they move ; bursting their banks, assaulting rocky barriers, raging, roaring, eroding ; with counter and cross-currents, eddies, whirlpools, horrible, precipitous narrows, and tremendous rapids, forerun- ners of still more tremendous cataracts. Borne along and whirled hither and yon in the midst of these frightful torrents we see indistinguishable masses of debris and angular blocks of frozen clay, with an interminable procession of rifted fragments of inland icebergs, accompanied with stones and rocks of differ- ing dimensions, from the pebble to the bowlder. Add to this the gloom of a cloudy sky, the ceaseless fall of rain, the riot of winds, the song of the tempest. Try to picture the indescriba- ble, continuous rush and turmoil of the elements, the intermit- tent thunder of the pounding ice and bowlders, then turn to the shrunken rivers of to-day.
The figures of the transporting power of water are startling. We know the force is as the sixth power of the velocity ; that is, by doubling the rate we increase the power sixty four times. To give concrete examples : A stream running at the rate of three inches per second will wear away fine, tough clay ; with a velocity of thirty-six inches per second the current will remove angular fragments of rock from two to three inches in diameter. The latter rate is quite moderate-a little more than two miles an hour-and presents but a picture in little of the rapidity of our earlier floods. We have taken no account of the influence of gravity operating on descending slopes, and we may also call to mind the fact that rocks lose nearly one-third of their weight in water.
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Let us now inquire in a general way what we find to be the environment of our typical New England river. At its sources we usually discover great rock masses, detached from the cliffs of the mountains. Along the course of the precipitous, tum- bling torrent-the trout-water of the sportsman - we find im- mense bowlders, more or less carved and water-worn, their angu- lar projections rounded, their bulk diminished and lessened as they course down the rough miles of attrition. At the foot of the descent we shall find aggregations of smaller bowlders, with cobble-stones and pepples. He who wades and follows, rod in hand, the bed of one of these mountain tributaries may step confidently from one stone to another and find firm footing, rare- ly meeting one that turns under his tread. The reason is as simple as it is significant, for each of these detached rocks has been many times rolled over and wrenched from its lodgment until it has at length found the groove that fits and holds it.
Where two mountain streams unite we shall generally find a tongue of land, or rather a delta of stone, usually symmetrical in form and built of assorted layers of stones and pebbles, seem- ingly put together with the discrimination of design. These shining, parti-colored beds are the bowlders in miniature. Still lower we find the smaller pebbles, gravels of varying fineness, then sand, and last of all mud or silt.
We can never view a bank of earth, laid bare by accident or design, exhibiting its curiously stratified layers, without refer- ring to this sorting and sifting process, this violent picking and choosing of torrents, while we stand in wonder at the delicate threads of deposition laid almost tenderly in place by succeeding quiet waters.
We have space merely to mention other tremendous agencies which have contributed to the landscape some of its most rugged features. We can only now hint at the ruin caused by streams dammed by drifting ice, or by the accumulation of more perman- ent obstacles, but there should not be left out of account the
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more terrible effects of land-slides choking the mountain gorges until the gathering waters burst the mighty barriers, carrying everything before them. That almost inconceivable havoc was not infrequently caused by these agencies our torn and ravaged plains attest. The White Mountains afford evidence of ancient land slides in many places. The Willey slide, though not large, became widely known from the loss of life which accompanied it. The great slide in Waterville was the most extensive ever known in this region. An immense mass of loosened earth and rock was precipitated to the valley from the steep western slope of Tri-Pyramid mountain, the material covering acres in extent and reaching as far as Mad river. The writer has personally visited and examined the scene of this great land-slip. Within quite recent years a considerable slide occurred on Cherry moun- tain, to which excursion trains were run to enable the curious to witness the unaccustomed sight.
But by far the most striking and picturesque slide ever occur- ring in New Hampshire took place in the town of Albany, in the county of Carroll, only a few years since. The north side of Passaconaway mountain was cleft from peak to base, laying bare the solid granite bed for the entire distance. The slide is narrow at the top, gradually widening as it descends and comes down in a straight line until the foot-hills are encountered. Here the mass was sharply deflected to the west and forced in- to the valley of Downs's brook. The north slope of Passacona- way is uncommonly steep and is densely wooded to the summit. But every tree and rock, inclusive of every inch of the soil, was carried down, leaving the very core of the mountain as clean as if swept with a new broom. The brook-valley was completely choked up with earth and stones piled with trees in inextricable confusion, rising many feet in height, and for nearly three miles the banks of the stream were lined with the blackened trunks of great firs and spruces. The water rose incredibly and finally forced its way through, but a splendid trout stream was ruined,
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The event occurred in the night and had no witnesses, but its horrible rumble and grinding roar shook the earth and was dis- tinctly heard and felt by the inmates of houses more than five miles distant. Passaconaway - signifying Child of the Bear - rises to a height of more than four thousand feet and is the high- est summit of the Sandwich range. The writer has repeatedly visited the locality and made himself familiar with the scene by climbing for a prudent distance up the slippery bed of this huge but unworked quarry. Viewed from the Swift river valley, com- monly known as the "Great Interval," at a distance of some four miles by an air-line, the picture is magnificent. The great rock-floor appears as steep as the sides of a church roof, but the feat of climbing it has been successfully accomplished, and what is more astonishing and apparently incredible, several persons have ascended the summit by way of the " Birch Intervale Trail" on the south or Tamworth side, and safely walked down the slide to the foot. It is well that they walked ; to run would be fatal, for once running there could be no stopping, and an at- tempt to put on the brake by lying down would be simply a changed mode of motion, as one would get about two miles of roll, with an accompaniment of bumps better imagined than de- scribed. In the exercise of an instinct quite common to many of us, we have quite decided to go down in a sitting posture, with a series of short hitches, which may consume time but will con- tribute to our peace of mind. A number of ladies have climbed Passaconaway, but none have made use of the rock-toboggan. This is reserved for the new woman.
Flowing from the east flank of Tri-Pyramid mountain and en- tering the Swift river a mile or more west of the base of Passa- conaway is Sabbaday brook. Two miles from its mouth may be seen the finest waterfall in the White Mountains. It is a right-angled fall, the first plunge being to the north, the second to the east. At the foot of the upper fall is a large, bowl-shaped basin, some twelve feet in diameter. At the foot of the lower
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fall is another basin, and leading from it is a deep flume cut in solid trap rock. In the white, rushing foam of this flume, in the summer of 1873, the writer caught his first genuine "rainbow trout." The surroundings of this waterfall add a gloomy gran- deur to the scene. The deep gorge is enclosed by vertical walls of trap rock, the ascent to the top being up a natural stone stair- way, the steps as sharply defined as if cut with a chisel. Some miles further up, the stream has been overwhelmed by extensive land-slides and for a mile or more is entirely buried. The two brooks referred to are mountain streams of the first order, with wide valleys and free water-courses, averaging from two to three rods in width, and flowing, the first for a distance of six and the second for more than ten miles of winding water.
The above, with many other features of great interest in this New Hampshire "garden of the gods " are little known, owing to remoteness of situation and difficulty of access, the distance from the nearest railway at Conway Corner being fifteen miles- the entrance between the frowning walls of Moat mountain and the peak of Chocorua. There is but one road by which to enter or return, and if one seeks a shorter way he must climb over the enclosing mountains. But woe to him who loses the trail, for there are thousands of acres of timber blown flat by hurri- canes, the passage of which is next to impossible.
The foregoing, although removed from the immediate sur- roundings of our story, is given in cumulative support of what has gone before, and as furnishing striking instances of the pow- erful forces still reserved by nature.
We shall not fail to find along the Merrimack valley at every mile of its course just what we might expect to find, in the light of the previous considerations. To localize the inquiry, we may now see both above and below Amoskeag falls, notably on the west bank, vast mounds of water-worn and water-borne deposits, consisting of sand, gravel and cobble-stones, the latter ranging from a few inches to a foot or more in diameter, and as various
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in composition as in size. These accumulations lie many feet above any high water mark of which record or memory remains. To be reckoned in millions of tons, they lie where they were left of old in the rocky peninsulas between the floods. We may find them at greater or less elevations, alternating with deposits of sand, earth or clay, now presenting beautiful banks with differ- ing colored strata, or again in a rude aggregation of unassorted drift. Wherever found, and whether near or remote from exist- ing water-courses, from which many of them are far removed, these terrace-like elevations tell us of the waters that brought them there.
A mile south of Rock Rimmon, passing over an elevated sand- plain, one comes suddenly to the brink of high bluffs, which as surely once looked upon a lake below them as Boar's Head looks upon the sea. The height, the waving contour-line following the shores of bays and inlets, the sunken river beds beyond and the shoals stretching between, all testify to the occupation and conquest of water in that sub-glacial era, of which so little is known, but concerning which so much still remains in records awaiting research and interpretation.
We know in a half-thinking way that a great city occupying the site of ancient Derryfield is built upon sand. How came it here? To this there can be but one answer: It was made in the first instance and fetched here by water, however much it may have since been tossed about by the wind or shovelled about by man. In a similar mood we carelessly tread beneath our feet in the concrete foundations of our public walks the stones worn smooth in the beds of the elder floods. Our forests grow, our harvests thrive upon soil leached and filched from the moun- tains, while the very walls that give us shelter are built of clay ground in the glacial mills and precipitated in the still waters of glacial lakes.
With the approach of summer the thoroughfares to the White Hills will be thronged with pilgrims. In the ceaseless but un.
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recognized work carried on in the laboratories of nature, asking only time and patience, how many inconceivable changes have been already wrought. Time and patience-given these what wonders have been achieved in the brief span of human effort ; with these, nature will continue to supplement her tireless work until the hills that remain shall follow those which have gone before. Slowly but surely water is performing its allotted work -the rivers are removing mountains.
Let no false conclusions be drawn from the record, and no theory of unmixed evil be too hastily reached. Nature knows no wrath. Earth, rent and torn in its early struggle with titanic forces, succeeded to a period of rest and preparation. The ordeal through which she passed was not beyond the measure of her endurance, the baptism of water and fire was a consecra- tion to a nobler use. Nothing is sweeter than the memory of hardship and privations passed ; our planet shivered in a wintry night, with rattle of driving sleet, a season of frowning skies, a burden of icy sheets and snow-piled plains ; but in the infinite reaches of time, healed and pacified, there came a spring of grace and glory, a summer of fruitful seed, a harvest of plenty. So, from the womb of appalling danger, has been begotten the last inheritance-LIFE.
In the menacing roar of the thunderous fall, in the rainbow of its mist, and in the sea that swallows all, we seem to behold a glorious trinity of Power, Law and Order ; we bow reverently before the majesty of that Creative Will which walked in dark- ness upon the face of the primeval deep, which brooded upon the face of the waters.
[ A succeeding paper is in preparation, which will deal with added evidences and consider other effects of the epoch under discussion in the foregoing pages. It will form part second of the series and will be paged continuously from the present num- ber. Among the topics reserved for discussion are " The Sand Area," the "Great Clay Beds," "Pot Holes and Rock Wear," the " Devil's Pulpit," etc.]
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