Kansas Academy of Science. 33 



KANSAS DURING THE ICE AGE. 



(Address of tlie Ketiriug President, Forty-ninth Annual Meeting.) 

 J. E. Todd. 



IT may safely be assumed that in a presidential address the 

 speaker is to bring forth some fruitage of his personal 

 research. The speaker came to the state nearly ten years ago. 

 He had studied glacial deposits in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, 

 South Dakota and North Dakota, or along the Missouri river 

 from its mouth to Bismarck, with the exception of northeastern 

 Kansas. Doctor Haworth soon engaged him to study the gla- 

 cial deposits of Kansas, and more or less progress has been 

 made each year since. It has been planned to finish this work 

 the present year. Portions of the results have been already 

 read before the Academy, namely, concerning "Drainage of the 

 Kansas Ice Sheet," "Wakarusa Creek," and "Kaw Lake." I 

 invite your attention on this occasion to a comprehensive, pop- 

 ular discussion of my subject without going into detail. 



Our subject is "Kansas During the Ice Age." After a pre- 

 liminary sketch of the different stages of the glacial period in 

 North America, a short review will be given of the facts dis- 

 covered, with some discussion of their correlation and signifi- 

 cance, and finally the whole will be given in a consistent pro- 

 visional history of the ice age in Kansas. 



Preliminary. The Pleistocene epoch was the first epoch of 

 the Quaternary period. It followed the Tertiary period, and 

 closed with the beginning of the present, or recent epoch. It 

 covered the last time when glaciers were prominent over the 

 earth. 



In North America, near the beginning of this epoch, snow ac- 

 cumulated many thousand feet in thickness over three centers 

 in Canada, namely, Labrador, Kewatin (west of Hudson's 

 bay), and in the British Columbia Rockies. From each of 

 these centers ice sheets advanced in all directions, but es- 

 pecially toward the south. 



Nor was this advance with one maximum or culmination, 

 but with several, at least three or four, advances of primary 

 rank, and more or less marked local culminations, which alter- 

 nated with either recessions or perhaps disappearance of the 

 ice. 



3— Sci. Acad.— 2163 



