112 Kansas Academy of Science. 



is quite wide in places and constitutes the highest glacial deposits 

 in the region. One hundred feet from the surface it was found to 

 contain a large number of boulders and cobblestones, the remain- 

 der of its make-up being mostly gravel. Judging from the de- 

 posits, the glacier seems to have moved back and forth across this 

 area several times, and near the close of the epoch it seems to have 

 covered it entirely. At this time it seems to have formed a trough 

 area between the two glaciers, and was consequently the dumping- 

 ground. In it, both in the United States and Canada, esker rivers 

 flowed to the sea ; the largest south of the international boundary- 

 line entered the bay at Blaine. 



RiDGE-ESKERS. — Several ridges, most all of the serpentine type, 

 are to be found in the region about Blaine and Custer and in the 

 region just north of Bellingham. The long broken ridge in Canada 

 seems to be an esker, but the country is too wooded to make a 

 sufficient investigation to determine that it is. At all places where 

 it was examined it was found to be composed of sand and gravel at 

 its summit. An esker several miles long, standing up above the 

 surrounding country like a railroad grade, has its sand plain in the 

 suburbs of Blaine. Where it ends abruptly at the edge of the old 

 Nooksack estuary it is forty-five feet higher than the land on which 

 it is situated. Its course is serpentine, in a western direction. At 

 a place or two it gives off ridges ; at others ridges join it. It is 

 composed mostly of gravel at its eastern terminus ; but, as Blaine 

 is neared, partly stratified sand becomes the predominant mate- 

 rial. It was evidently deposited in a large superglacial stream — a 

 stream that followed the normal course of the Nooksack river and 

 reached the sea by the shortest route. Ridges of esker type cross 

 the Parallel road several places between Bellingham and Lynden. 

 Similar ridges were also seen at Custer and Mountain View. 



Kames and Kettle. holes. — In the push-medial morainic area 

 east of Blaine in the inter-esker spaces the country is very knolly 

 and contains many kettles. Most of the hills (marked drumlins on 

 the map) seem to have been formed by the unequal melting of the 

 ice at the glacial margin at the final retreat of the ice-sheet, the 

 superimposed boulders and larger masses of till partially protect- 

 ing the ice beneath them from melting. The unprotected portions 

 of the ice would melt soonest, forming depressions. Into these 

 the superimposed till on the protected areas would finally be 

 dumped by lateral sliding; and, when the ice finally disappeared, 

 would remain as kames (called drumlins by some writers). The 

 portions of the ice that melted slowest would now represent kettle- 



