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TRAVELLING ROCKS IN CANADA.

Lord Dunraven, in an article in tho Nineteenth Century, thus describes a culious phenomenon) observed by him in Canada: —A-strapge scene, for example, which came within my observation last year, completely puzzled me at the time and has done so ever since. ' I wag in Nova Scotia in the fall, when ouc day my Indian told rue that in a lake close by all the rocks were moving out of the water—a circumstance which I thought not a little strange. However, I went to look at the unheard of spectacle, and, sure enough, there were tho rocks appa - untly all moving out of - the water on -to dry land. -i. The lake is of considerable extent, but shallow and full of great masses of rock. Many of these masses appear to have travelled right out of the lake and are now high and dry some fifteen yards above the ' margin- of the water. They have ploughed deep and regularly defined channels for themselves. You may see all sizes, fiom blocks of say, roughly speaking, six or eight feet in diameter, down to stones which a man could lift. Moreover, you find them in various stages of progress, some a hundred yards or so from the shore, and apparently just beginning to move ; others half wuy to their destination, and others again, as I have said, high and dry abovo the water. In all cases there is a distinct groove or furrow which ,the rook hud clearly ploughed for itself. I noticed one particularly good specimen, au enormous block which lay some yards above high water mark. The earth and stones were heaped up in front of it to the height of three or four feet. There was a deep furrow, leading down directly from it into the lake, and extending until it was bidden from my sight by the depth of the water. Loose stones and pebbles were piled up on each side of this groove hi a regular, clearly defined line, f thought at first that from some cau»e or other tho smaller stones, pebble* and sand had been dragged down from above and consequently had pilod themselves up in front of all the large rocks too heavy to he removed, and had left a vacant spaco of a fow yards behind the fixed rocks. On the contrary, these grooves or furrows remained tho same width throughout their entire length and havo, 1 think, undoubtedly been caused by tho rock foruiug its way up through tho loose shingles dud stones whioh compose the bed of tho lake. What power has set theso rocks in motion it is difficult to decide. The aotion of tho ice is tho only thing that might explain it; but how ico could exort itself'in that luauuer and why, if ice is the cause of it, it does not manifest that tendency in every lako in every part of the world, I do not pretend to comprehend. -My attention having boon onoo'directed 'to this,, I noticed this in various other' lakes.' Unfortunately my Indian only mentioned it to me a day or two before I loft the woods ; I'had not time therefore to make any investigation into the subject. Possibly some of my readers may be able to | account for this, to me, extraordinary phoiiomouon. ■

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/STSSG18791115.2.14

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 111, 15 November 1879, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
554

TRAVELLING ROCKS IN CANADA. Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 111, 15 November 1879, Page 2

TRAVELLING ROCKS IN CANADA. Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 111, 15 November 1879, Page 2

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