CHAPTER ly. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE SYSTEMS OF GLACIAL 



GRAVEL. 



According to the nomenclature here adopted, a system comprises the 

 sediments deposited by a single glacial river with its tributary and delta 

 branches. 



VANCEBORO SYSTEM. 



Two well-detined osars converge at Vanceboro station. One has been 

 traced for about IJ miles northwest of the station, as a low ridge, scarcely 

 rising above a bog. The gravel is distinctly waterworn, and the ridge 

 would naturally extend farther north, but such extension has not yet been 

 traced. The railroad station is built on the gravel of this ridge. The 

 other osar is a two-sided ridge, from 10 to 30 feet high, which follows the 

 west shore of the Lower Chiputneticook Lake for somewhat more than a 

 mile north of Vanceboro, when it seems to end in a bog near the lake. The 

 shore of the lake here bends toward the northwest, and the northern exten- 

 sion of this systejn, if there is any, would naturally be found on the north 

 side of the lake in New Brunswick. Numerous persons have reported to 

 me that "horsebacks" of gravel are found in the valley of Palfrey Brook, 

 but I can not be certain from the descriptions whether these- are till or true 

 glacial gravel. A horseback on Eel River, in York County, New Bruns- 

 wick, has also been reported. Mr. R. Chalmers describes it^ as a large 

 ridge, probably beginning in Maine and thence extending sotitheastwardly 

 along the valleys of Bull Creek and Eel River to First Eel Lake, where it 

 disappears under the lake. Mr. Chalmers's description shows this to be an 

 osar. So large a ridge implies a glacial river of considerable size. As it 

 does not seem to end, according to Mr. Chalmers's description, in a delta- 



' Report on the surface geology of western New Brunswick : Geological and Natural History 

 Survey and Museum of Canada, Report of Progress for 1882-83-84, p. 25 GG, Montreal, 1885. 

 70 



