.1. W. SPEN< EB — ANCIENT SHOBE PHENOMENA. 



II and Karnes. — The osars (Anglicized from the Swedish word 



Isar, meaning gravel hills) being the term in America applied to very 

 narrow gravel ri< den only a few score yards in width at the base) 



or chains of mounds, winding in a more or less serpentine manner across a 

 comparatively flat country, above which they rise at nearly as steep angles as 

 the loose mat. rial will stand to a height of forty or sixty feet. They are also 

 defined as generally extending from a higher to a lower country and follow- 

 ing the course of the greater valleys — that is, at right angles to the coast 

 Lines. A beautiful example of an osar, as above described, is to be seen 

 southeast of Lansing, Michigan. It trends into an inlet among the hills, 

 oblique to the general direction of the ancient coast. Driving along the top 

 of the ridge, which i- scarcely wider than the road, it is seen to be composed 

 of constantly and suddenly alternating stretches, each quite level, the one 



being about twenty-live feet above the other. These so-called osars form 

 a very limited proportion of the gravel ridges of this group. 



The term kame ( the .Scotch vernacular for gravel hill), according to its use 



in America, is described by Chamberlin as "assemblages of conical hills and 



short irregular ridges of discordantly stratified gravel ; between which are ir- 



:ilar depressions and symmetrical bowl-shaped hollows that give to the 

 whole a peculiar, tumultuous, billowy aspect. . . . These irregular accum- 

 ulations are, however, more abundant in connection with deep, rapidly descend- 

 ing valley.-, being especially abundant where they are joined by tributaries 

 or where they make a sharp turn in open portions of their valleys, and 

 especially where they deboucb into an open plainer country. In such 

 instances they are usually associated with gravel terraces and plains. Pre- 

 cisely similar accumulations are very common associates, if not constituents, 

 of terminal moraines. . . . They are transverse to the slope of the 

 .-urfncc, the course of the valleys and the direction of the drift movement 

 1 i urn observation in nature, as also from the description itself, it 

 will In- seen that the term kame is not specifically used, and that differ- 

 ent kinds of gravel deposits are grouped under the same name. Indeed, 

 from the above description, the term mighl be better applied to some of the 

 deposits described above under group I b, which are more or less covered 

 with clay. However, there are < icaland tapering ridges in many localities 



without a tumultUOUS structure, whose relations to each other are not easily 



discernable, that may he placed here under the name of kame. Some of the 



kaiie- in the valleys are doubtless river deposits, and others are the remains 



oi uncovered buried beaches of greater age, exposed l>v subsequent erosion. 



II //. — 'fhe internal structure of this series is similar to that of the other 



members of the group. The external form is that of intermittent ridg 



- rising to sixty feel above a frontal subaqueous coastal plain 



hlrd Annual !•• , ,i Survey, L883, p. 800. 



