172 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ACADEMY OF [1885. 



tions of both the United States and Canada, shows evident 

 aqueous action, not onty subsequently to, but during its depo- 

 sition. 



The great lake basins, and the St. Lawrence Valley, receiving 

 subglacial streams from south as well as from north, may have 

 been flooded with water while the ice still covered them. 



Important deductions regarding the physical condition of the 

 lowlands while covered by the glacier, and of the origin of certain 

 aqueous varieties of till might be drawn from a further consider- 

 ation of this subglacial drainage. The method of movement of 

 a great glacier, a problem not yet fully understood, is also largety 

 dependent upon the presence or absence of water beneath the ice. 



The northward-draining marginal kames are undoubtedly but 

 an insignificant portion of the widespread deposits made by the 

 subglacial drainage which they indicate. 



Since this paper was read at Montreal, Mr. J. H. Kinahan, of Dublin, 

 who was present when the paper was read, has, in an article entitled "On 

 the use of the term Esker or Kam Drift" (Amer. Journ. Science, xxix, 188o, 

 p. 135), criticized the pronunciation and use of the word kame by Ameri- 

 can geologists; while at the same time reaffirming his belief that "true 

 eskeror kam drift" is "due to currents and eddies generated by the meeting 

 or colliding of two or more currents in a mass of water, such as that of a 

 sea or large lake." He argues that because of an ancient Celtic word 

 "cam" or "kam" meaning crooked or winding, we should pronounce the 

 word kame short, as if spelled cam. 



It is not probable that American geologists will adopt this short pronun- 

 ciation. The word has long been pronounced kame both in England and 

 Scotland, and in tin; latter country is often spelled kaim. Indeed Mr. Kina- 

 han himself formerly used this spelling, and therefore also, the long pro- 

 nunciation. (See his article " On the Drift in Ireland," Journ, Hoy. Geol. 

 Soc. Ireland, vol. i, p. 200, where he speaks of "eskers or kaim$.' n ) 



The now antiquated idea that eskers and kames are due to oceanic or 

 lacustrine currents has naturally enough been held in Ireland, where the 

 land often lies but little above ocean level, but such a theory is untenable 

 in America. Mr. Kinahan himself says, that the marginal kames of 

 America must lie quite different from the Irish eskers, and ventures the 

 explanation that "there were at times 'flashes' or areas of shallow water 

 accumulated margining the faces, portions of which were still water, while 

 in other portions there were currents ; or it might have been a mass of snow 

 margining a narrow flash of flowing water.'' This explanation, like one 

 held by Sir William Dawson (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., xxxii, 1884, 

 p. 35), that the terminal moraine simply marks the "limit of the deep 

 water of a glacial sea," would probably be greatly modified had those geolo- 



