202 THE GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 



lakes and sti-eams of the region, remains of rushes and sedges and peaty 

 deposits, and occasionally Ijranches and logs of wood, such as are floated 

 down l)y streams in their stages of flood. In the valley of the Red River 

 of the North these recent fliudal deposits have commonly greater thickness 

 and extent than the underlying silt of the glacial Lake Agassiz, which, 

 however, in some portions, as near the deltas of the Sheyenne and the 

 Assiniboine, occupies large areas. 



PRINCIPAIi GLiACIAL LAKES OF THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES 

 AND OF CANADA. 



New England, Qitdtec, the eastern provinces, the Northeast Territory, and 

 Labrador: — Attending the retreat of the ice-sheet from New England, Que- 

 bec, and the eastern provinces, many glacial lakes of small size and short 

 duration were formed on areas declining toward the north or northwest, 

 as in the valley of the Contoocook River, in New Hampshire;^ on the 

 western flanks of the Green Mountain range, in Vermont, where Mr. C. L. 

 Whittle informs me that delta deposits of such origin occur up to heights 

 of fully 2,000 feet; on head streams of the River St. John, in northern 

 Maine; and in southern Quebec, between the Atlantic-St. Lawrence water- 

 shed and the receding ice front. Fewer and still smaller glacial lakes, 

 usually leaving no well-marked records of their existence, doubtless also 

 attended the glacial retreat in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfound- 

 land, and Labrador. But soon the ocean-washed ice border was melted 

 back from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the broad St. Lawrence 

 Valley perhaps to Quebec, admitting the sea to the area of Lake Cham- 

 plain, which, with the Hudson Valley, had been occupied during the reces- 

 sion of the ice by a long and narrow glacial lake, extending from near New 

 York City to near Montreal, caused by the southward elevation and north- 

 ward depression of the land." 



North of the St. Lawrence the receding ice opposed no barrier to 

 drainage from large areas until it withdrew across the height of land divid- 

 ing the St. Lawrence waters from those tributary to James and Hudson 



' Geology of New Hampshire, Vol. Ill, 1878, pp. 103-120. 

 "•Bulletin, G. S. A., Vol. I, p. .566; Vol. Ill, pp. -184-487. 



