Is'A.VlES OF GLACIAL DEPOSITS. 35 



Names, — TliGSG gTavel clei30sits have such curious and distinctive shapes 

 that they have received local names wherever they occur. The Scandina- 

 vian osars, the Irish eskers (or eskars, or eschars), and the Scotch kames 

 are sujoposed to be the equivalents of the gravel ridges here described, or 

 nearly related to them. These deposits contain matter of various sizes, 

 fi-om fine clay to large bowlders, but gravel is by far the most abundant. 

 I have found the term glacial gravel a convenient general title for describing 

 every kind of coarse sedimentary formation which was deposited by glacial 

 streams. The term has the disadvantage of implying a theory as to the 

 origin of these sediments, and it does not describe their composition in all 

 cases, yet it is often convenient as a generic name when there is doubt 

 what specific name should be given to a certain deposit, whether kame, 

 osar, etc. 



In Maine these deposits have received many local names. The most 

 common name is " horseback," but this name is also applied to a hill or 

 ridge of any other kind of material, whether loose material or solid rock. 

 They are also known as "whalebacks" and "hogbacks." Sometimes one 

 of these ridges is known as the Ridge (as Chesterville Ridge), and they are 

 not infrequently known as "windrows," "turnpikes," "back furrows," 

 "ridge furrows," "morriners," and sometimes as "hills." Several of these 

 ridges used to be known as "Indian roads," because Indian trails were 

 made on top of them in the midst of a swampy region. In one place a 

 ridge of this kind was called the " Indian railroad." It may be suspected 

 that those who gave it this name had in mind certain archeologists who 

 have thought that the osar ridges were built by the Indians. It would cer- 

 tainly be remarkable if the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians or their 

 predecessors had been so industrious in former ages as to outdo the mound- 

 builders and build several thousand miles of these embankments — embank- 

 ments far surpassing in size all the mounds of the Mississippi Valley 

 and the railroads of Maine combined. Cones of glacial gravel are fre- 

 quently known as "pinnacles," "hills," "peaks," or even as "mountains." 

 Broad, flat-topped ridges have attracted much less attention than the two- 

 sided ridges and the cones ; yet many of them are locally known as 

 "plains," and this is the common name in Maine for a plexus of the reticu- 

 lated ridges, or for any broad mass of sand and gravel, especially when 

 overgrown by blueberries and other bushes. 



