1995 | Tue GraciaTion oF Mount Orrorp, P.Q. aaa 
bdoulder-clay, or crysta!line boulders were observed. Reaching the 
north-west and west brow of the mountain summit we found the 
rock surface broken, jagged and angular, instead of worn and 
rounded as it should be if ice had passed over it. Continuing 
thence to the highest point on which the flag-staff stands, parts of 
it were found to be bare rock, while bushes and stunted trees grew 
in the hollows and crevices. Striking evidences of decay are 
apparent on every hand, the rock being everywhere rent and frac- 
tured. A broad weathered chasm with angular blocks in it which 
have fallen from the sides, crosses the summit in the direction of 
S. 40° E. and N. 40° W. mag. ; but there was no sign of glacia- 
tion here. The rents and cracks in the rock surface referred to 
are sometimes parallel to the chasm and sometimes not, and when 
‘the sharp edges of the smaller and finer cracks become weathered 
they resemble glacial grooves. In other places however, the sur- 
face of the rock is uneven, lumpy and without any appearance of 
planation. No boulders of gneiss or granite were observed on this 
part of the summit The whole aspect of the mountain is that of 
one rapidly crumbling to ruins, the nature of the rock, an altered 
diabase, being such that in an exposed position, it could not have 
retained glacial marks for the length of time which has elapsed 
Since the glacial period, even if it had once been overridden by ice. 
Prof. Hitchcock reports that in October, 1897, he ascended 
this mountain, and at the Boston meeting of the American Associa- 
Zion for the Advancement of Science in 1898,* he gave the results 
of his examination, making the altitude 5,000 feet, and stating, as 
already mentioned, that ice had passed entirely over it striating the 
summit and distributing boulders of Laurentian gneiss upon it, etc. 
But any one, understanding glacial geology, who has been on the 
higher part and around the mountain cannot avoid seeing that if 
he were there at all his examination must have been very imperfect. 
I am constrained to believe that Prof. H. never was on the highest 
part of this mountain, but only reached its upper slopes. 
In regard to Owl’s Head, a mountain 16 miles to the south of 
Mount Orford, and 2,400 feet high, Prof. Hitchcock remarks, ‘‘ | 
may say that I have examined the summit of this mountain and 
* Proc. of the A. A. A. of Science, 1898, p. 292. 
