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<span style="" >In a series of entertaining essays, geoscientist Jelle Zeilinga de Boer describes how early settlers discovered and exploited Connecticut’s natural resources. Their successes as well as failures form the very basis of the state’s history: Chatham’s gold played a role in the acquisition of its Charter, and Middletown’s lead helped the colony gain its freedom during the Revolution. Fertile soils in the Central Valley fueled the state’s development into an agricultural power house, and iron ores discovered in the western highlands helped trigger its manufacturing eminence. The Statue of Liberty, a quintessential symbol of America, rests on Connecticut’s Stony Creek granite. Geology not only shaped the state’s physical landscape, but also provided an economic base and played a cultural role by inspiring folklore, paintings, and poems. Illuminated by 50 illustrations and 12 color plates, <span style="font-style:italic;" >Stories in Stone <span style="" >describes the marvel of Connecticut’s geologic diversity and also recounts the impact of past climates, earthquakes, and meteorites on the lives of the people who made Connecticut their home.
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Stories in Stone
Early Connecticut Silver, 1700–1840 by Peter Bohan and Philip Hammerslough Introduction and Notes by Erin Eisenbarth The Old Leather Man by Daniel DeLuca Westover School: Giving Girls a Place of Their Own by Laurie Lisle Henry Austin: In Every Variety of Architectural Style by James F. O’Gorman Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith by Chandler B. Saint and George Krimsky Welcome to Wesleyan: Campus Buildings by Leslie Starr Stories in Stone How Geology Influenced Connecticut History and Culture by Jelle Zeilinga de Boer
Stories in Stone How Geology Influenced
Connecticut History and Culture
Jelle Zeilinga de Boer
w e s l e ya n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s m i d d l e t o w n, c o n n e c t i c u t
Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress © 2009 by Wesleyan University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 54321 Wesleyan University Press is a member of the GreenPress Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle. Stories in stone / Jelle Zeilinga de Boer. p.
cm. — (Garnet books)
Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978–0-8195–6891–5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Geology—Connecticut. I. Title. qe93.z45 2009 557.46—dc22
2009011073
c To Bjorn, Byrthe, and Babette, with apologies for all those years in which they had to share their father with Connecticut’s rocks
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Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. In the Beginning: Continental Fusion and Breakup 2. Weather and Climate: Hurricanes and Ice Ages 3. Connecticut’s Geologic Treasures: Gems and Ores Sidebar: Gems in Quarry Tailings Sidebar: Other Historic Quarries and Mines in Connecticut
4. Settlers and Soils in the Central Valley: The Legacy of Glacial Lake Hitchcock 5. The Metacomet Ridge: The Scientific, Political, and Cultural Impact of an Old Lava Flow Sidebar:The Curse of the Black Dog
6. The Moodus Noises: The Science and Lore of Connecticut Earthquakes
ix xi 1 8 27 56 74 82 83 105 129
132 156 7. Visitors from Space: The Weston and Wethersfield Meteorites 157 Afterword: Our Lithic Inheritance 171 Bibliography 175 Index 197 Sidebar: Moodus Tremors and Sonic Booms
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Preface Many of us have, at one time or another, wished that stones could speak. It first happened to me when I was six years old and