2'78 J. W. GOLDTHWAIT GLACIATION IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 



The view of Doctor Upham, that the moraine marks the northern limit 

 of a local White Mountain ice-cap, is also rejected for the following 

 reasons : 



1. While there is abundant evidence of a southward movement of drift 

 to the moraine, there is no reliable evidence of a northward movement 

 of it. 



2. Striae run in a north-south or northwest-southeast direction. While 

 they might be interpreted as records of a movement toward the north or 

 northwest, the very definite dispersion of drift in the opposite direction 

 lays the burden of proof on the advocate of a local northward movement. 

 Agassiz and Hitchcock accepted the striae as records of the southward 

 moving continental ice-sheet. 



3. There are no crescentic valley moraines in the ravines such as would 

 be likely to mark halts in the recession of a local valley glacier which 

 survived the local ice-cap. 



In place of these two interpretations of the evidence it is held that the 

 moraines were built at the southern edge of the North American ice-sheet 

 when this had retired from the White Mountains, but still covered the 

 adjoining region to the north and blocked the Ammonoosuc Valley, for 

 the following reasons : 



1. The trend of the morainic belt for several miles, and as a rule the 

 trend of its component parts, where they are of a linear character, is 

 east-west or northeast-southwest — perpendicular to the course of striae 

 throughout northern New Hampshire. 



2. The great bulk of the drift in the moraine has undeniably traveled 

 southeastward or southward, and, so far as known, all of it has done so. 



3. The dominance of stratified drift, which occurs in enormous vol- 

 umes, overlain by angular blocks from apparently englacial or super- 

 glacial sources, suggests obstructed drainage in the Ammonoosuc Valley — 

 a condition easily explained by an ice dam over the lower country on the 

 north and west, but not by an ice-cap which lingered on the highlands 

 after the adjoining valleys had been freed from ice. 



Carroll Moraine Field and outwash Plains 



general description 



About 6 miles east of the Bethlehem district, between Beech Hill and 

 Cherry Mountain, is a remarkable group of deposits of stratified drift to 

 which hitherto little attention has been paid. It includes (a) a pitted 

 outwash plain just south of the village of Carroll, on the drainage divide 

 between Carroll Stream and the Ammonoosuc; (b) a great kame field 



