294 J. W. GOLDTHWAIT GLACIATION IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 



as well as those on the Mount Washington Range and Mount Moosilauke, 

 we may resolve them into the following general propositions : 



(1) There was a time in the Pleistocene period, prior to the last ad- 

 vance of the North American ice-sheet over New England, when local 

 snowfields on the higher ranges supported small, short glaciers of the 

 alpine type. These were probably confined to the sides of peaks which 

 exceed 4,500 feet altitude, and only then in favorable situations. This 

 condition may have lasted merely during the early stage of the last Glacial 

 epoch or during a part or the whole of one or more earlier epochs of 

 glaciation. It sufficed, in any case, for the carving out of well defined 

 cirques. 



(2) During the stage of maximum glaciation of the last Glacial epoch 

 the ice-sheet, whose center was in Canada, moved across the White Moun- 

 tain region from northwest to southeast. It obliterated all local valley 

 moraines, but spared the cirque form of the ravine heads. 



(3) When at the close of the last Glacial epoch the ice-sheet melted 

 away from northern New England, it departed from the White Mountains 

 without leaving any local glaciers — much less a local ice-cap — in them. 

 It retired toward the northwest, building at least one strong line of re- 

 cessional moraine in the Ammonoosuc Valley, where ponded waters caught 

 an immense mass of stratified drift. 



Finally, it is interesting to find that Professor Hitchcock read a paper 

 on "Terminal moraines in New England" at the Rochester meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1892, in which 

 he undertook to sketch the outline of the continental ice-sheet at several 

 stages of its retreat from northern New England, by means of belts of 

 kames, outwash deposits, and other features associated with an ice-front. 

 These lines, he reported, run somewhat north of east. "There may be 

 relics of another line," he said, "along the principal White Mountains, 

 as indicated by kames near Littleton and moraines at Bethlehem Hollow 

 and Carroll." 2 While it is not clear how to reconcile this interpretation 

 with his views regarding local glaciers, and an Ammonoosuc glacier in 

 particular, the suggestion is no less prophetic. 



28 C. H. Hitchcock : Terminal moraines in New England. Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. 

 Sci., vol. 41, 1892, pp. 173-175. 



