KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 95 
THE BURIED MORAINE OF THE SHUNGANUNGA. 
By B. B. SmytH, Topeka. Read before the Academy January 1, 1897. 
Ice flows. Like all fluid and plastic substances it flows along lines of least 
resistance. When heaped high and unconfined at the base it spreads at the base 
and becomes lower at the top. When climate is such as to cause a continued 
accumulation of snow at a certain place, the continued pressure of the overlying 
snow has a tendency to solidify the underlying portions and convert into ice. 
Such were the conditions during what is known as the glacial period over all 
the region south of Hudson bay. A long-continued period of cold induced con- 
gelation of the vapors from the Gulf of Mexico into snow north of certain lati- 
tudes, depending on the season. With reduced temperatures all over the northern 
hemisphere, as stated in Volume XIV of these Transactions, pages 223 and 224, 
snow would fall during winter north of 38° north latitude, and all the year round 
north of 50°. West of 100° west longitude there should be little accumulation of 
snow; because, unless the humidity was much greater than at present, the annual 
precipitation west of that meridian should be less than the evaporation, and snow 
should generally disappear, whether melted or not. 
Hence it happens, conditions of moisture and prevailing winds being consid- 
ered as well as temperature, that the greatest snowfall, and consequently the 
greatest depth of ice, should be south of Hudson bay and north and northeast of 
Lake Superior. 
HEIGHT OF THE ICE. 
If the snowfall during each year should be 214 feet, which when partially 
melted and packed into ice would be about four inches, and this accumulation 
were continued through 12,000 years (see volume cited, page 223,) the height of 
the ice would be about 4,00 feet, to say nothing of the added height of unpacked 
snow on top of that. The evidences of advance of the ice to the south are that 
the ice, at its culmination, was fully that high from the west end of Lake Supe- 
rior to the east end of Lake Ontario, and that the great lakes were frozen up 
entirely solid, or nearly so. But it is probable that the height of the ice north of 
Lake Superior was somewhat greater, as the snowfall must have been greatly in 
excess of three feet per annum for a very long time. 
From the south end of Lake Michigan the ice was pushed southward; from 
the west shore of Lake Michigan the ice was pushed to westward of south; and 
from the west end of Lake Superior the ice was pushed to the southwest until it 
met the great ice field that was being pushed southward in the valley of the Red 
river ; thence it was deflected to the south. 
Whatever the height of the ice was over Manitoba, or over Ontario north of 
Lake Superior, it was sufficient to push its foot clear down to Kansas, as shown 
by the drift and other glacial material in the northeast corner of the state, and 
by the line of boulders across the corner of the state on the outer margin of this 
drift area. 
But suppose the ice in Ontario were not of sufficient height to push its foot into 
Kansas. It had a valuable ally in the great Missouri. Between Ontario and 
Kansas the Missouri flows over a vast tract of elevated plain situated for the 
most part, with its tributaries, west of the one hundredth meridian, and therefore 
in the arid region west of the glaciated area. The Missouri was shut out from 
reaching Hudson bay, and compelled to flow southward along the western margin 
of the ice field, making a new channel for itself. When the waters of the Mis- 
