Price.] 2G0 [March 3, 17, St. 



original situation." "The only explanation that is at all satisfactory in 

 accounting for the transporting power whicli has brought detached luasses 

 of granite rocks into their present position, u floating ice ; ice drifted by 

 currents setting from the north, before the land emerged from the ocean, in 

 the same manner as, at the present time, thousands of tons of rocks are pre- 

 cipitated on the bed of the Atlantic Ocean from icebergs." "Their isola- 

 ted position in the prairie also indicates that they were dropped into their 

 present positions rather than rolled into it." 144, 145. "The clay -beds 

 are often thinly laminated, at some exposures, the lamin?e are wrinkled. 

 They conform in their dip to the general undulations of the country." p. 

 298. This, of course was after the depositions. 



Charles A. White's first annual Report in 1867, to the Iowa Legislature, 

 speaks of meeting with some stria? on tlie bluffs which border the bottoni 

 lands of the Missouri River ; the coarser set (No. 1), S. 20° E. ; the finer 

 (No. 2) S. 51" E. Set 3 below Omaha is S. 41° W. p. 144. Tlie direction 

 of the scratches No. ?> observed coincides pretty nearlj' with general direc- 

 tion of the western watershed of the State ; "and sets No. 1 and 2 re- 

 spectively represents currents approximately coinciding with the general 

 courses of the Missouri and Platte Rivers." p. 145. Diversity in the di- 

 rection of the grooves, passing from all northerly to all soutlicrh' points, 

 and in conformitj' with the trend of valleys and water-sheds, favor the 

 theory of the cause being floating ice rather than the rigid gigantic ice- 

 sheet that would hold its course onward against all obstructions, according 

 to the glacial theory. 



Professor Ilayden has occasionallj' noticed the action of ice during his 

 recent explorations in the far west, but the striations have been mostly 

 from the valley glaciers in the mountains. He says : " Along the Platte 

 River, below Omaha, and on the ^Missouri, near the city, the carboniferous 

 limestones have had their upper surface so thoroughly smoothed by glacial 

 action that they can be quarried out and used for caps and sills without any 

 further finish of them." Report for 1870, p. 99. "There are a few small 

 grooves or scratches, and * * I ascertained their direction to be about 

 27<^ west of north." All the limestones round Omaha, under the yellow 

 marl and pebble deposits, were so smoothed. "In the mountains proper, 

 the evidences of glacial action are not uncommon, especially on the sides of 

 the deep valleys and gorges, but the causes were local and operated when 

 the temperature of the climate was much lower than it is at present." 

 p. 100. 



Speaking of the eastern portion of the Rocky Mountains, source of the 

 Arkansas, Professor Ilayden says: "Perhaps the most interesting and novel 

 features of this region are the great morainal deposits, the remains of an- 

 cient glaciers. These proofs of glacial action occur everywhere along both 

 the east and west sides of the great Sawatch or Mother Range. But up 

 the valleys of sonic of the side streams the morainal deposits are more 

 marked and regular than in others." Report for 1873. Speaking of the 

 Park Range, the gentle slopes are on the cast side, the west sides very 



