1885.J NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 159 



water-courses, even crossing rivers, as may be seen on the Merri- 

 mac at Lawrence, which is said to he crossed at right-angles by :i 

 kanie. 1 In no sense, however, can kames be regarded as the work 

 of rivers merely. For, as Prof. Stone has shown so clearly in 

 Maine, they sometimes rise out of a valley and pass through a gap 

 in the hillside or cross a ridge perhaps 150 feet high, to low 

 grounds beyond. Prof. Stone has in several cases followed them 

 up-hill for a short distance. 



Such facts may best be explained by the supposition that the 

 stream of water which formed them must have either been 

 enclosed within high walls of ice, or have flowed in a subglacial 

 tunnel. 



Literature. — A large number of kames, occurring under various 

 conditions, have been observed in different portions of the glaciated 

 area of North America. None occur south of that area. 



As long ago as 1842, Dr. Edward Hitchcock described a series 

 of gravel ridges which pass through Andover, Mass., and which is 

 known locally as " Indian Ridge." At that time he regarded this 

 ridge, composed, as he well described it, " of a collection of 

 tortuous ridges and rounded even conical hills with corresponding 

 depressions between them," 2 as a species of moraine. These have 

 been more recently studied in detail by Prof. G. F. Wright, 3 who 

 has shown that they form part of a chain of such ridges, many 

 miles in length, running from Franklin, N. H., to Maiden on the 

 ocean, and are true kames. 



The most complete studies of kames in this country are those 

 made by Prof. Geo. H. Stone, 4 who has mapped some thirty-one 

 linear systems of kames in the State of Maine, all running from 

 the high interior of the State southeastward toward the sea. 

 He describes them as meandering like rivers in their course from 

 the mountains oceauward. They start sometimes at elevations as 

 high as 1600 feet above the ocean, they freely cross low transverse 

 hills 100 feet high, but not 200 feet high, and they have a strong 

 inclination to keep within straight lines, notwithstanding minor 

 obstacles. These ancient gravel streams were not so easily turned 

 from their course as streams of to-day. When once in a valley 



1 Wright, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xix, 47. 



2 Trans. Am. Assn. Geol. and Nat., 1841-2, p. 101. 



3 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Dec, 1870. 



* Kames of Maine. Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xx, 430, 1880. 



