290 J. W. GOLDTHWAIT GLACIATION IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 



(1) The valley follows an east-west course, and the local glacier should 

 have done the same. There are no strise known except the north-south 

 striae, which all observers, including Hitchcock, have assigned to the con- 

 tinental ice-sheet. 



(2) The boulders of gneiss on the hill west of Bethlehem Junction 

 and of Mount Deception granite east of the Fabyan House resemble the 

 nearest ledges, including ledges which are known to occur short distances 

 north and west of them. 



(3) The boulders of granite reported to have moved westward from 

 Mount Deception to the Twin Mountain House can be referred to ledges 

 on the hillside immediately northwest of their resting places. 



(4) The boulders of Albany granite reported by Hitchcock might 

 easily have come from unknown sources north of the Ammonoosuc Valley. 



(5) The patches of morainic ground noted in the valley are not so 

 formed nor so related to the valley as to suggest the margin of a local 

 glacier resting against their up-valley sides. 



(6) The "local valley moraines" near the White Mountain House, in 

 particular, lack the form and relationship to topography which such mo- 

 raines would possess, but prove to be a local kame and esker series, pre- 

 sumably left by the Canadian ice-sheet. 



Limited Occurkence of Cirques in the White Mountains 



The foregoing evidence against local glaciation, both in the Ammo- 

 noosuc Valley and in the ravines on the north side of Mounts Lafayette 

 and Garfield during the closing stage of the Glacial period, is in accord 

 with observations on the Mount Washington Eange in 1912. 27 Although 

 well developed cirque sculpture was found in several of the Mount Wash- 

 ington ravines, notably in Kings, Huntingtons, and Tuckermans ravines 

 and the Great Gulf, index forms of local glaciation were absent beyond 

 the mouths of these ravines and entirely absent in others, which head on 

 the same slopes; and, so far as distant observation could be trusted, no 

 signs of glaciation were evident on the Carter Range, whose summits 

 approximate 5,000 feet altitude. The inference was drawn, therefore, in 

 1912, that the local glaciers were not at any time extensive enough to 

 reach beyond the foot of the highest ranges of the region, and that prob- 

 ably they were confined to the heads of the highest and otherwise most 

 favorably situated ravines. Reasons were advanced, also, for the view 

 that the local glaciation occurred principally, if not wholly, before the 



27 J. W. Goldthwait : Glacial cirques near Mount Washington. Amer. Jour. Science, 

 vol. xxxv, 1913, pp. 1-19. Following the trail of ice-sheet and valley glacier on the 

 Presidential Range. Appalachia, 1913. 



