280 J. W. GOLDTHWAIT GLACIATION IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 



EVIDENCE OF A SOUTHWARD MOVEMENT OF OUTWASH 



The kame and kettle topography of the deposits, although indicating 

 great irregularity in the outline of the ice-border, and requiring the pres- 

 ence of detached masses of stagnant ice in close association with the ac- 

 cumulating gravels and sands, suggests a southward flowing of glacial 

 drainage rather than a northward one. From a steep, high ice-contact 

 slope near the fork of roads at Carroll, the pitted plain which forms the 

 central and most prominent feature of the valley slopes steadily and per- 

 ceptibly southward, falling in height not less than 20 feet between its 

 north and south borders, from the 1,500-foot contour to the 1,480-foot 

 contour, according to the Whitefield Quadrangle (see figure 1). The 

 surface of the plain, although strongly pitted near its northern edge, be- 

 comes smooth over its central part, and at the southern border is inter- 

 rupted by only a few shallow depressions. There is also a noticeable de- 

 crease southward in the number and size of boulders. Near the northern 

 border of the plain they commonly exceed a foot in diameter, but south- 

 ward they give place to cobblestones and pebbles. From the southeast 

 corner of the plain a nearly level kame terrace reaches southward along 

 the State highway for over half a mile, as shown by the contours of the 

 United States Geological Survey map, connecting at last with the exten- 

 sive kame plain northwest of Twin Mountain station. A similar terrace 

 occurs on the west side of the pass, as shown in figure 1 . In the more 

 southerly kame field, occupied in part by the golf links of the Twin 

 Mountain House and in part by pastures, there is a very noticeable ten- 

 dency among the hillocks and swells to reach a common level, though 

 there is no such perfect continuity of flat surface here as in the Carroll 

 plain. This accordance of hillocks gives the deposit the appearance of a 

 rude, incomplete delta. Near Twin Mountain House it envelops kames 

 and an esker of earlier date. According to the map, the altitude is about 

 1,460 feet. A deep cut at the bend of the Maine Central Eailway shows 

 that bedrock and block-filled boulder-clay lie but a short distance beneath 

 the surface, and suggests that some of the knolls which interrupt the 

 kame plain are of that character, standing too high to be buried by the 

 outwash. Other sections along the southern border of the plain, how- 

 ever, show large boulders and blocks imbedded in the sands and gravels 

 of the kames. The absence at both the Carroll and Tavhi Mountain plains 

 of frontal lobes, such as are built by distributary streams on their deltas, 

 may be due to lingering masses of ice at their outer margins. The con- 

 tinuous southward slant of the top of the plains and kame terraces be- 

 tween Carroll and the Ammonoosuc supports the view that the outwash 

 gravels and sands were discharged southward through the pass into the 



