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GENEALOGY COLLECTiON

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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 01187 9340

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CONTRIBUTIONS

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD,

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

TOPOGRAPHY AND LANDSCAPE

AS MODIFIED BY TORRENTS FROM MELTING ICE-FIELDS, TOGETHER

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF EARLY FLOODS AND OTHER

LOCAL EVIDENCES OF A GLACIAL EPOCH.

BY WILLIAM E. MOORE.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THI

MANCHESTER HISTORIC ASSOCIATION.

PART L

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

PRICE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS.

Entered according to Act of Congress

in the

Office of the Librarian at Washington, D. C.

iSq6.

1242367

CONTRIBUTIONS

TO THE

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD.

BY WILLIAM E. MOORE.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY — LANDMARKS — ROCK RIMMON — THE PINNACLE — MERRI-
MACK— PISCATAQUOG — BLACK BROOK — COHAS — MASSABESIC
LAKE — SPECIAL FEATURES, ETC.

THE conscientious and self-respecting historian will always
aim at relating not only the truth but the whole truth. His-
tories of Derryfield have been written, but none of them began
at the beginning. It does not need to be added that very much
was omitted.

The present undertaking will give some account of pre-his-
toric times and will be brought down to date. The whole period
covered embraces more than a thousand centuries — how much
more cannot with certainty be computed. In the presence of
this time-problem the wisest are ignorant, since the facts with
which we have first to deal refer to times so remote as to make
ancient history a tale of yesterday. The story to be related in
these opening chapters relies for evidence upon no witnesses —
there were none — neither upon myth, legend or tradition. Our
sole authorities are certain eloquent " sermons in stones " and
sundry decipherable "books in the running brooks." These,
however, supply ample and conclusive testimony.

4 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

All the available sources of information will be examined, and
the animal, vegetable and mineral creation interrogated. No
stone will be left unturned, no field unploughed, no plant or
animal^ permitted to escape.

LANDMARKS.

For the present we defer giving details of the early occupa-
tion and settlement of Derryfield and confine our view to some
prominent features of its natural scenery and topography. To
present these in intelligent order it will be necessary to broaden
our horizon to include the entire landscape, from the highlands
on the east to the mountains rising west of the Merrimack.

From the river valley the ground ascends rapidly at first, then
broadening into an extensive and nearly level plain, and again
mounting abruptly to the height of land in the eastern fore-
ground. Here the chief elevations are known as Wilson, Bald,
and Oak or Heath-Hen hills. From these highlands a magnifi-
cent panorama salutes the eye, and as the sun illuminates the
picture a thousand points of splendor punctuate the wide and
varied scene.

To the north may be seen Mt. Belknap and the Gilford moun-
tains, as well as a portion of the Ossipee and Sandwich groups,
while with favoring conditions glimpses of the Franconia range
may be seen without a glass. To the northwest is a distinct
view of Kearsarge and Ragged mountains, while in Vermont
the distant crest of Ascutney breaks the line of the horizon.
Westward and trending south we are confronted with Crotchet
and Temple mountains, dominated by Pack and Grand Monad-
nock, the blue lift of Wachuset in Massachusetts closing the
grand sweep as if of a hemisphere.

But these, with others scarcely less conspicuous, form only
the background of the picture, for nearer and in front stand the
Uncanoonucks and Joe English, flanked by the Dunbarton,
Mount Vernon and Lyndeborough ridges, while nearer still are
the rounded slopes of Hackett, Shirley, Scribner's, and Yacum

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 5

hills, with a host of lesser eminences completing the details of
a picturesque landscape, which for quiet and restful beauty is
unrivalled in southern New Hampshire.

Ancient Derryfield included the whole riverfront, from above
the falls at Amoskeag on the north to below Goffe's falls on the
south, and the mile-limit to the east crossed the summit of
Wilson hill.

ROCK RIMMON.

Directly west of Amoskeag falls, upon a level plateau extend-
ing from the ancient river terrace, Rock Rimmon lifts Its solid
shoulder of gneiss above the plain. This rock is an object of
great interest, attracts many visitors, and offers a most superb
view of the Piscataquog and Merrimack valleys. The easterly
escarpment is a sheer and inaccessible precipice of one hundred
and seventeen feet, the crest reaching an altitude of more than
three hundred feet above the bed of the river.* The summit is
easily reached from the western and northern slopes.

THE PINNACLE.

Eight miles away to the north, on the west bank of the Mer-
rimack, is another bald and rocky peak, mounting also from a
terrace-plain, rising even higher than its Derryfield rival. Just
west and touching the base of the Pinnacle is a small lake. The
water is very deep, is po[)ularly believed to have no bottom, and
in area and contour is said to exactly match the outline of the
Pinnacle itself. It has been contended that this great mass of
rock was lifted bodily from the bed of the lake and the hole
afterwards filled with water. When the Pinnacle slides back to
its old quarters we may the more readily assent to this theory.
A substantial observatory bass been erected upon the summit,
from which exceptionally fine views may be had.

* The exact figures, taken from the field-notes of the City Engineer, are as follows : Top
of rock above city elevation, 296.35 feet ; base above the same level, 179.83 feet, and about 95
feet above low-water mark at Amoskeag eddy. E.xtreme height of rock, 116.53 feet.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

THE MERRIMACK.

This river is now a continuous stream from its sources to the
sea, but there is little doubt that the present valley was once
filled with a great chain of lakes, extending from the Winne-
pesauke on the north to an indeterminate point to the south,
certainly as far as ancient Dunstable. The evidence in support
of this view is conclusive and will be considered in detail here-
after. Along the course of the river the ancient terraces form
a conspicuous feature.

THE PISCATAQUOG.

This river enters the Merrimack on the west bank, some two
miles below Amoskeag falls. The valley extends in a north-
westerly direction, passing to the west of Rock Rimmon. The
old terraces on either bank are remarkable.

BLACK BROOK. '

This considerable water-course has its source in the Dunbar-
ton hills, twelve miles away, flows southeasterly and enters the
Merrimack on the west bank a short distance above Amoskeag
falls. The significent relation of this now somewhat reduced
stream to our history will become more apparent as the record
proceeds.

COHAS BROOK.

Aside from a number of inconsiderable brooks and rivulets,
this is the only local water-way remaining unnoticed. It is the
outlet of Massabesic lake and enters the Merrimack on the east
bank, immediately below Goffe's falls. The foregoing, therefore,
comprise all the principal water systems properly belonging to
the Derryfield map, or which are of importance as relating to
our present inquiry.

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 7

MASSABESIC.

Four miles to the east, and wholly within the bounds of an-
cient Chester, this fine body of water lies in a series of bays, so
joined by necks and separated by headlands as to ihclude a shore-
line of not less than thirty-six miles. From this lake the great
manufacturing city of Manchester derives its water-supply. The
Massabesic is dotted with numerous islands and surrounded by
highlands, conspicuous among them being a splendid rocky
promontory on the Auburn shore, Minot's ledge, and the moun-
tain in Chester familiarly known as the "Devil's Den." The
old water-marks plainly show a much higher lake-level in a not
remote period, the water then wholly covering the present high-
way and involving the out-lymg meadows and lowlands. Several
smaller ponds are found within the limits of ancient Derryfield,
but none calling for more than passing recognition.

SPECIAL FEATURES.

Over and above the more prominent landmarks of the terri-
tory we have attempted to describe there are in addition a num-
ber of less conspicuous but even more striking points of interest.
Chief among these are the following:

1. The great clay deposits about the Hooksett Pinnacle, and
extending north, especially on the east bank of the river.

2. The enormous accumulations of sand upon the site of Der-
ryfield proper.

3. The stupendous bulk of water-worn stones and gravel, high
above modern water levels, in ancient terraces and moraines.

4. Certain remarkable instances of rock-wear performed by
pre-historic streams.

5. Travelled blocks and rock-fragments transported from dis-
tant centres of dispersion.

6. Curious survivals of tropical trees and shrubs.

8 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

These, with added evidences of the work done by water in
another age, will be considered in the proper place, when it will
be shown that these wonderful monuments now bear mute but
unimpeachable testimony to the existence of powerful and long-
continued currents, fiowing in so vast a volume as to make the
proudest river of to-day a p]a\ thing. These propositions, with
the facts referable to them, are as certain as anything in Deut-
eronomy, but we regret to say there are still otherwise intelli-
gent people who refuse to believe them. The Agnostic claims
that he can know nothing, and is aware of it ; but even such
an one is less difificult to convince than he who likewise knows
nothing but has no knowledge of it.

Should it be desired to prove beyond question that New Eng-
land was once the scene of volcanic activity, a piece of Roxbury
pudding stone would be sufficient. So, in reference to our pres-
ent purpose, any strip of land in New Hampshire, with hills
and valleys and water-courses, will serve for illu.stration. Such
a region was Derryfield — a territory one mile wide and eight
miles long — ranging upon the Merrimack, and now the river-
front of Manchester.

CHAPTER II.

THE AGE OF ICE-WATER — GRADUAL DISAPPEARANCE OF WATER — EARTH
MAKES STEAM — A WITNESS OR TWO.

Stated by the best obtainable evidence, this zone of ours has
passed through at least one — possibly several — -glacial epochs.
We have now to consider only the last, the tffects of which are
still to be seen about us on every hand, when sought for with
asking eyes.

The glr.cial and inter-glacial theories, as now understood and
generally accepted, offer a wonderfully inviting field for study.
No time will be lost in any discussion of the causes which made
necessary an age of ice, and we shall now simply illustrate our
history with some [pictures showing the action of water, notably
of streams proceeding from rapidly melting ice-fields.

We are tempted to record much matter not wholly within the
scope of our story ; we find it difficult to avoid asking and even
attempting some answer to questions which troop about and
beset us at every turn, but must be content with a few prelim-
inary generalizations.

We may conceive Earth in its desolation, its first-born naked-
ness, before desire arcjse, absolutely without life other than that
which may have been potential. We then reach a later period in
whicli there was indeed life, existing in low forms, mair.tained
with difficulty, intermittent and migratory. Still later we recog-
nize a true life-bearing age, in which plants and animals inclus-
ive of man appeared, moved and died.

To the foregoing it seems necessary to add that as there were
life-bearing and non-life-bearing periods so there were non-life-
producing as well as life yielding zones. Moreover, that climatic
changes in the same zone rendered it now fit now unfit for life,
and this entirely without reference to elevation and subsidence

10 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

or any other so-called cataclysmal operation of the crust of our
planet. We intend to mean that the surface of solid Earth has
been by turns so blasted with fire, devastated by ice, and deluged
with water, that for long periods of time and large continental
areas life of most sorts was out of the question.

Our orthodox friends will observe that we have no wish to
ignore the flood ; on the contrary, we insist upon several and
as many rainbows as called for.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WATER.

We assert with some confidence that there was once much
more water upon the surface of our globe than at present ; the
oceans were larger, the inland waters and streams of greater
volume. Should this position need reinforcement let us admit,
as it seems we must, that the earth once nourished no life, either
animal or vegetable, and we have at once nameless millions of
fluid tons to be somehow accounted for. Nor can it be claimed
that the atmosphere then and always held moisture in suspen-
sion as now, or that absorption by percolation was a process of
the earlier as well as of the later stages of creation. We are
thus brought face to face with a curious problem : Without
plants or animals, with an atmosphere totally rejecting it and
the earth stubbornly declining to take it in at the pores, what
was the status of water and where its abiding place .'*

THE EARTH MAKES STEAM.

Not to be entirely in the dark or beyond our depth, we may
hint at the appearance and concede the existence of steam in
the earlier cycles and must give it a place as one of the prime
factors in the complicated processes of evolution, and to this
day and hour a powerful agent in its still uncompleted opera-
tions, to which it is not our present purpose to refer. Our read-
ers are expected to comfortably fix u|:)on dates, either as to the
appearance or duration of the phenomena described or to be

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. II

described in these opening chapters. We say only and stand by
by it, that there was fire, water and steam, fume of gas and
molten flood, ice and snow, by turns and altogether, in such
horrible fashion as no new nor old notion of hell can illustrate.
If we seek for evidence, present and eloquent witnesses await
our interrogations.

Let us first suppose such a state of things as has been hinted
at, when there was this preponderating amount of surface water ;
that following this period, in necessary sequence, the effects of
evaporation and condensation succeeded ; that in simple obedi-
dience to cosmical laws milder methods of dissipation of energy
were made possible, and that finally, during a period of intense
cold, the whole or nearly the whole maximum mass of water at
this parallel was converted into ice, and we are furnished with
at least a tentative theory if not a working hypothesis.

One familiar with the testimony of the rocks and the environ-
ment of our modern water-systems cannot doubt that something
much like this did happen ; that the very zone we now inhabit
was once and probably more than once delivered over to the
rigors of an arctic winter. In the light of the highest and best
equipped recent scientific authorities no prime fact is more
rightfully believed than that a large portion of this now temper-
ate belt was once deeply covered with ice, and for so vast a
cycle that it must have been regarded as perpetual by the people
of that age, if people there were.

A WITNESS OR TWO.

Again without pausing to discuss the causes which brought
about this condition, and not even considering the possibility of
its recurrence, it assuredly follows that such an age of ice could
not and did not come and go without leaving its mark.

During a long and busy life Prof. Agassiz accumulated a vast
amount of information as to the agency of glacial action in pro-
ducing geological effects. A student of glaciers for forty years,

12 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

and growing up in a glacial region, he was familiar with their
phenomena. He says : " As soon as geologists have learned
to appreciate the extent to which our globe has been cov^ered
and fashioned by ice, they may be less inclined to advocate
changes of level between land and sea, whenever they meet with
the evidence of the action of water."

Charpentier speaks of "perpetual snow-sheets and glaciers
reaching the sea, as far down as the middle of the present tem-
perate zone." Prof. Gunning characterizes the New England
ice-sheet as "colossal." Prof. Newbury, of Columbia College, in
a review of the evidence, reaches this conclusion : "The glac-
iers and snow-fields of Greenland stretched continuously down
the Atlantic co.ist, to and below New York. * * * * The
highlands of New England weie completely covered and proba-
bly deeply buried in sheets of ice and snow." Prof. Dana says
the ice-sheel was "semi-continental," and adds: "The height
to which scratches and drift occur about the White Mountains
proves tnat the upper suif.ice of the ice in that region was 6, GOO
or 6,500 feet in heigh.t, and hence that the ice was not less than
5,000 teet in thickness over the whole of that part of northern
New England. Facts also show that the surface height in south-
western Massachusetts was at least 2,800 feet, in southern Con-
necticut 1,000 feet or more." He again remarks that "the
continent underwent great modifications'in the features of the
surface through the agency of ice," and points out in great
detail the tffects produced by glacial torrents.

It would be easy to multiply authorities, but since they can
be consulted by questioners and doubters we will not forestall
their studies. We assume, then, that there is no one prime
fact in the past annals of our planet better proved than that of
an age of continental glaciers. Evidence of this is increasingly
convincing and may be found for the seeking upon nearly every
square yard of the hillsides and valleys of New England.

Mankind are prone to treat with indifference that which is
common, and the familiar aspect of our lakes and rivers, even of

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE I3

the sea, provoke in us no commensurate idea of the stupendous
force which water is capable of exertins^.

Two hundred and odd years ago the earliest printed descrip-
tion of Niagara was given to the world by Father Hennepin.
His account of this "vast and prodigious cadence of water" is
a mixture of childish exaggeration and sober truth." But the
sublimity of this great cataract, which discharges the enornious
volume of eighteen million cubic feet of water every second,
needs not the aid of description. About 9,800 cubic miles of
fresh water — nearly half the quantity on the entire globe — are
in the upper lakes, and all the water from these huge reservoirs
makes the circuit of the falls, the St. Lawrence, the ocean,
vapor, rain, and a return to the lakes in a little more than a
century and a half.

But how shrinks this brief cycle of time and how fade the out-
lines of the scene when in imagination we stand beside the
gigantic operations of the past. What some of those operations
were let Mr. Cla''ence King tell in his own words. In alluding
to volcanic activities he speaks of " what was once a world-wide
and immense exhibition of telluric energy * * * distortions
of the crust, deluges of molten stone, emissions of mineral dust,
heated waters and noxious gases," and asserts that modern vol-
canic phenomena are "insignificant when com[3ared with the
gulfs of molten matter which were thrown up in the great mas-
sive eruptions " of the past.

He adds: "Of climatic catastrophes we have the record of
at least one ;" and in reference to a glacial period he sets forth
the destructive effects of the invasion of our latitude by polar
ice, and the devastating i:)ovver of the floods which were charac-
teristic of its recession. He contends that the modern rivers
are mere echoes of their parent streams in the early quarternary
age and utterly incapable, even with infinite time, to perform
the work of glacial tonents. Citing the wonderful canons of
the Cordilleras, he says "they could never have been carved by
the pigmy rivers of this climate to the end of time." In view

14 HISTORY OF "DERRYFIELD.

of all the ascertainable facts, Mr. King believes they present
" perfectly overwhelming evidence that the general deposition
of aerial water, as compared either with the phenomena of the
immediately preceding period or vvith our own succeeding con-
dition, constituted an age of water-catastrophe whose destructive
power we only now begin distantly to suspect."

We have thus briefly cited the few foregoing authorities, in
order to reinforce and fortify our interpretation of certain local
phenomena, and to the end that our theories may not wilfully
be divorced from fact. To the mathematician, the geologist,
the astronomer — to those who walk without stumbling in the
wide ways leading to the sun — we leave the task of explanation.

We call to our support at this point but one other authority,
and quote from the works of Prof. Hitchcock, whose researches
in the very field of our inquiry are precisely in point and entitle
him to a hearing. He says : " The evidence is clear of the pas-
sage of the ice-sheet over all the higher New England summits."
The facts illustrating this statement may be found in the geo-
logical reports for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Mas-
sachusetts ; for example as to Katahdin, the White Mountains,
the Green Mountains, and for Greylock in the state last named.
These reports are easily accessible. Prof. Hitchcock describes
in detail the moraines and the upper and lower till, and of the
former he says: "The capping of the hill is loose, the frag-
ments are rough, not far removed from their source, commonly
lying naturally." He concludes that these materials were held
in the ice at the time of its melting. He also refers to exten-
sive "sloping plains of gravel and sand, deposited by streams
from melting ice acting upon the moraine." He concludes by
remarking that "the numerous kames, elevated sand plains and
river terraces came into existence with the copious floods of
water resulting from the dissolution of the ice. The history of
the ice-age is incomplete without a discussion of the events
occurring in this great continental freshet."

±>C^'^lStyV

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 1 5

Our own century beholds Earth, as if newly-awakened from
a dream ; draped in beautiful garments, she has striven to hide
the scars of her terrific struggle for life. Time has obliterated
much ; but there still remain records of an age that is past, and
the clear eye of science — the \ision of him who seeks to know
— may still see the ancient ice cap moving majestically over the
spruce and fir-clad hills of our own northland.

In the tremor of forgotten earthquakes and the outburst of
crater fires ; in the fall of dew and the music of rain ; m waiting
flakes of snow or crystals of frost ; in the quiet creep of glaciers
or the rush of enfranchised waters we recognize the play of the
old terrestrial forces by which the frame-work of our Earth has
been evolved.

CHAPTER III.

CONCERNING EARLY FLOODS.

There is at this day no excuse for descendants of our Derry-
field ancestors not knowing that a literal river of ice once flowed
down the now peaceful valley of the Merrimack. Its direction,
volume and extent are mapped upon their rock-wrinkled home-
steads. It crawled southward, grinding along at the rate of
a foot a week — a mile in a century. It at some time halted,
for how long we may only guess, and then began the terrible
retreat. The rate of recession is not so well determined, but
was without doubt comparatively rapid, though probably arrested
at various stages and for undefined periods. To judge from the
wide-spread havoc to which this near section has been subjected
there must have been a halt near us. We know — since we
stand upon the scene of the event — that from the foot of this
retreating, melting glacier, poured frightful down-rushes of tur-
bid water, by whose action the landscape acquired its present
characteristic features, and by which the surface materials of
this region have been so strangely sifted and assorted.

The tourist of to-day who shall stand beside the source of the
Arveiron, "who drinks in the sublime view at the foot of the
glacier ; he who beholds this marvel, glorious with icy portico,
facade and pyramid, who hears at night the scornful roar of the
Alpine flood," may peradventure frame some dim conception of
energies which seem to know no yesterday nor morrow. But
greater things than these, which promised, to flow forever, have
passed away.

Let us come nearer home. Passing westward from the river
let us climb the isolated ridge of Rock Rimmon — if, indeed, it
be not also submerged — and from that point observe. To the
west and trending northerly lies the valley of the Piscataquog ;

HISTORY OF DERRYFlELD. I7

to the east front, ranging north and south, the valley of the
Merrimack, and between these the lesser valley of Black Brook.
From the point of time we have chosen — a matter of seventy
or eighty thousand years ago — these little resemble the peace-
ful landscapes with which we are now acquainted.

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.
2

tS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

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

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. I9

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 VVaterville 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.

20 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

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-fioor 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

HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 21

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

22 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

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-

HISTORY OF DERKYFIELD. 2$

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.]