94

THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

eS
————

ESS a })
4 s Pu a

 

Rocking Stones.

HAVE seen some very large boulders

of rocks in different parts of the

country, so poised upon a rocky

base, that a child can move them
with one hand. At Fall River, in Mas-
sachusetts, there is such a boulder. It
is an enormous piece of rock, weighing,
according to the estimate of the cele-
brated geologist, Professor Hitchcock,
upward of five thousand tons. A view
of it is given in the engraving. This
stone, as you see, at the point where it
touches the rock on which it rests, is
quite small; so that it can be very
easily made to move.

When a boy, I remember there was a
rock of this description not far from my
father’s house. It was situated near the
top of a high hill, and it used often to
be a part of the amusement of all the
boys in the neighborhood, on Saturday
afternoons, when there was no school, to
visit the famous stone, and to set it a-
rocking backwards and forwards. We
sometimes aspired to a much greater feat,
too. Wegot together all our available
force, and by means of a large number

of levers, we tried hard to overturn the
stone, and to set it rolling down the hill.
It is due to the stone, nevertheless, to
add, that, either because it did not fancy
such an excursion, or because it was dis-
inclined to change in general, or for some
other reason, it never left its old po-
sition.

It is a cause of a good deal of specu-
lation among geologists, how such boul-
ders as these were ever split off from the
rock of which they originally formed a
part, and how they were carried, as it
is evident they were carried, in some in-
stances, to such a great distance from
their first position. We sometimes find
hundreds, weighing several tons each,
miles from the place where that species
of rock is formed. It puzzles the wise
heads a good deal. There are, in fact,
a great many puzzling things about ge-
ology. The little I know about the
science gives me a keen apetite for more
knowledge respecting it. It is a most
interesting study; and I advise all my
young friends to look into it, by all
means, if they get a chance.