COMPLEX I]Sr YORK AND OXFORD COUNTIES. 261 



high, leaving vast deposits of water-assorted matter on hillsides where there 

 never could be any running water except rain-water rills (see PI. XXII). 

 Here these gravel plains divide into diverging series which after a time come 

 together again. By the time the observer has seen all this he will be ready 

 to admit that these gravels are wholly inexplicable as the result of fluvia- 

 tile, lacustrine, or marine action. In the midst of these winding valleys bor- 

 dered by high hills and covered by water-rounded cobbles, bowlderets, and 

 bowlders, showing the action of swift currents from the north, and in pres- 

 ence of the meandering lines of gravel, wandering about on the tops of 

 hills, the iceberg theory of the glacial drift of Maine utterly breaks down. 

 These circuitous gravel systems bearing such curious topographical rela- 

 tions become of themselves one of the strongest proofs of the existence of 

 the ice-sheet over Maine. Glacial ice accounts for the barriers necessary 

 to force streams over hills and to prevent them from flowing downhill by 

 the steepest slopes. No other known drift agency can do this. The critical 

 student of the great northern drift should by all means visit this region. 



On the map the glacial gravel of this region is marked as ending on 

 the north a short distance southeast of Fryeburg Village. North of this 

 point lies the large level basin of Fryebm-g, Lovell, Stowe, and Stoneham, 

 inclosed by high hills. To the west and northwest lie the White Mountains 

 and their outlying ranges. During the last days of the ice this level vallej^ 

 would be filled by a sort of local glacier, replenished from the north and 

 west along valleys where the flow of tlie ice could continue after the move- 

 ment over and across the hills lying to the north had ceased. Here would 

 be a local tongue of ice filling a valley about 25 miles long and from 3 to 

 5 miles broad. In all this valley I have not found a deposit of unmistak- 

 able glacial gravel. Cold River originates among the eastern spurs of the 

 White Mountains and flows southeastward into the Saco River. Its valley 

 would be a favorable place for a glacial stream, but the alluvium in the 

 valley is ver}^ diiferent from tlie gravel here described as glacial. The 

 stones are subangular and the di'ift is clearly fluviatile. The apparent 

 absence of glacial gravel from the level Fryeliurg basin, while it is so 

 abundant in the hilly country to the south, will be further discussed in a 

 subsequent chapter. 



South and east of the Portland and Rochester Railroad the country 

 was wholly under the sea as far as the New Hampshire line, except a few 



