THE ESKERS OF NOVA SCOTIA. PREST. 381 



showing that the water which made them must have been 

 under great head if they are of strictly subglacial origin". 

 To prove the tremendous velocity of these subglacial streams 

 some authors point to the so-called fact that the debris in 

 these streams have been transported up and over high hills. 

 Why this insistence on such facts, as they are called, when 

 none have been proved? And how could water raise* itself 

 higher than its source? Some contest this with the theory 

 that there has been an unequal elevation of land in this part 

 of the state of Maine since the formation of these eskers. 

 The known evidence, however, proves that there has been 

 an equal amount of post glacial elevation all along the coast 

 of Maine. It needs a very unequal amount of elevation 

 to form new lines of drainage. 



Eskers Cross Drainage. — The fact that these eskers do 

 not coincide with the natural course of drainage show^s that 

 they were not formed by the sub-glacial drainage system. 

 The gravel ridges in Nova Scotia also often run across both 

 the course of drainage and glacial movement so that any 

 motion in these ridges must have been at right angles to 

 their course, that is down hill. 



While most of the eskers of Nova Scotia and Maine cross 

 the glacial striae and the drainage system, the kames are 

 nearly always parallel with the course of ice movement 

 and the drumlins or hills of unstratiiSed drift are always 

 so; therefore we cannot possibly ascribe all to the same 

 cause. 



Tributaries. — Subglacial streams, naturallj' following the 

 course of the drainage, would without doubt be joined by 

 other subglacial streams; therefore the resulting esker 

 would necessarily have tributary eskers. The facts are that 

 the course of eskers is not governed by the slope of the land 

 in Nova Scotia any more than in Maine; and as far as my 

 explorations go the eskers of Nova Scotia are not joined 



