GEOL.-VOI,. I.] TURNER— ORIGIN OF YOSEMITE VALLEY. 307 



cliff upon the main glacier below. A description by 

 Geikie of a similar example observed by him in Norway 

 will give the reader a picture of the phenomenon as it might 

 have been observed in glacial times in Yosemite Valley. 

 Such glaciers which break into fragments over cliffs and 

 become pressed together again at the base are called " rece- 

 mented glaciers." Geikie writes: — 



A beautiful example of this again was visited by me at the head of the 

 Jokuls Fjord in Arctic Norway in 1865. * * * The ice from the edge of 

 the snow-field above slipped off into occasional avalanches which sent a roar 

 as of thunder down the valley, while from the shattered ice as it rushed down 

 the precipice clouds of white snow-dust filled the air.^ 



The Illilouette glacier probably likewise reached the val- 

 ley, but I have obtained thus far no positive evidence that 

 it did so. There were found along Bridal Veil Creek from 

 three to five miles above the falls three small moraines. 

 These appear to be quite old, as the material from which 

 they are composed is much oxidized. They afford the only 

 evidence found that the ice-mass at the head of Bridal Veil 

 Creek ever extended as far north as the points where the 

 moraines are, and no glacial markings of any kind have 

 been found in Bridal Veil Creek basin, except near its head. 



Attention has already been called to a small moraine-like 

 mass on the 7,000 foot point southeast of Cathedral Rocks 

 in the Bridal Veil Creek drainage. If this is a moraine it 

 is perhaps more likely that it attained its present position 

 by means of the glacier of Bridal Veil Creek drainage than 

 from that which formerly occupied the Yosemite Valley. 

 The extensive moraines that lie east, north and west of the 

 hill, having an altitude of 9,100 feet two and one-half miles 

 north of Eagle Peak, are to be ascribed to the work of a 

 local glacier moving east, north, and west from this 9,100 

 foot point. The main ice-mass of this local glacier occupied 

 the drainage basin of Cascade Creek, and as there are two 

 small moraines along Cascade Creek by the Big Oak Flat 

 road, the glacier may have extended down to that point. 

 Whether or not the ice from this source extended still far- 

 ther and entered the valley there is no evidence. 



1 Text Book of Geology, 1893, p. 422. 



