GLACIAL GEOLOGY IN AMERICA. 561 



America has proved peculiarly fruitful in results. Here, again, the 

 whole subject is reviewed historically, and the name and work of each 

 observer are impartially noted. Much of the difficulty encountered 

 by the glacial theory arose, as we have seen, from the fact that only 

 mountain glaciers had been studied, so that many of the phenomena 

 produced by continental ice could not be explained. Professor Fair- 

 child says, as to this aspect : " More has been learned of the structure, 

 behavior, and work of our ancient ice sheets by the study of the 

 Alaskan glaciers during the last ten years, and especially by the study 

 of the Greenland ice cap during the last four years, than by all the 

 study of the Alpine glaciers for the seventy years since they have 

 been observed." Prominent among those who have worked in this 

 field are the names of Professors Chamberlain and Salisbury in 

 Greenland, and Professors H. F. Reid and I. C. Russell in Alaska; 

 other important contributors are Prof. W. P. Blake, the pioneer 

 geologist in Alaska, 1867; Dall and Baker, who discovered and 

 named the Malaspina Glacier in 1874; and John Muir, 1878, for 

 whom the Muir Glacier was named; Wright, Baldwin, Schwatka, 

 Libbey, and others, and Barton and Tarr in Greenland. 



Professor Russell, in 1891, recognized and named a type of 

 glacier that was before unknown. In his studies on the Malaspina 

 he found a condition that does not occur, so far as yet observed, any- 

 where else than on the northwest coast of America; this is where a 

 number of mountain glaciers debouch upon a low, flat coast plain, 

 and unite to form a great sluggishly moving sheet of ice. This par- 

 ticular development he called the Piedmont type. 



In closing his address, Professor Fairchild remarks that the word 

 " theory," as applied to the glacial origin of the drift and its phe- 

 nomena, may and should now be abandoned. The subject has 

 passed beyond the stage of theory, and is as well understood and as 

 clearly established as the volcanic origin of the cone of Vesuvius or 

 the sedimentary origin of stratified rocks. 



In the center of the artificial platforms or platform mounds, character- 

 istic of many of the ancient Peruvian towns. Mr. Bandelier has observed 

 features that recall forcibly the New" Mexican Indian custom of giving to 

 each inanimate object its heart. In some instances, says Mr. F. W. Hodge, 

 in his paper, round columns formed a kind of an interior niche ; in others, 

 a small chamber contaiued urns or jars with maize meal. A remarkable 

 and very significant feature was observed by the explorer in a partly ruined 

 mound at Ohanchan. The core of this structure when opened showed two 

 well-preserved altars of adobe. In such interior apartments, figurines of 

 metal, clay, or wood are almost invariably found ; and the materially val- 

 uable finds made in Peruvian ruins in earlier times came from the " heart '" 

 of one or the other of the artificial elevations described. 



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