40 ESKAR EXCAV.ATION IN NOVA SCOTIA. PREST. 



wear than the compact and frozen till in the inequalities 

 beneath the ice sheet. Its orderly stratification 

 Age of was therefore possible onlj- in the closing stages 

 Siratificaiioti of the ice age, when moderate tho often inter- 

 rupted currents transferred the debris along the 

 crevasse from higher to lower grounds. Slight movements 

 along the line of glacial action after stratification had begun 

 would account for the curved and distorted laj^ers noted by 

 some observers. 



So far, I have been using as working theories only the 



observations of the most reliable explorers — facts which 



none of us would have the temerity to doubt. 



Emdenc3 Readers of the works of Arctic and Antarctic 



theorT^ explorers will acknowledge the actual operation 



at the present time in the polar regions of what 



I propose to call the Crevasse theory of eskar formation. 



Only this small doubt remains; We cannot see 



A feeble the Polar eskars as we see our own. But doubt 



doubt in this case would be the same as if we emptied a 



scuttle of coal into a deep dark hole, and then 



doubted its presence there because we could not see it. 



To return to the treatment of more local details we 



may note some peculiarities of the Middlefield eskar. One 



is the absence of large boulders; in fact the entire 



Local absence of anything but the most well-worn and 



peculiarities rounded rocks of any kind. Even river and 



lacustrine boulders do not show a more intense 



torrential action. Nothing less than the most violent and 



long-continued agitation, as under a torrent of water falling 



from an immense height, could show such results. 



In regard to the absence of large boulders, those being 

 firmly bedded in the ice sheet could not have been easily 

 overridden and swept into the maelestrom of aqueous action 

 unless in the course of the crevasse. Large boulders would 

 more probably be carried forward in the general ice movement. 



Another peculiarity is the abrupt enlargement of the 

 upper end of the Middlefield eskar on the eastern side of a 

 flat tableland. This enlargement is a perfectly natural result 

 of the enlargement of the highest part of the crevasse by the 



