NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 625 



during the corresponding stage of the Long Island lobe or in 

 what was termed the Martha's Vineyard- Block Island stage. 



The retreat of the Nantucket lobe to Cape Cod, where it 

 halted for a time, formed the Cape Cod stage of this lobe, while 

 a retreat of the front of the western lobe to a poison on the 

 Elizabeth Island, Southern Rhode Island, Fisher's and Plum 

 Islands, and the northern part of Long Island resulted in what 

 was termed the Elizabeth Island -Fisher's Island stage. It 

 is well known that the ice of the Long Island lobe had a general 

 southeasterly motion, but it was shown that the Nantucket lobe 

 came from the northeast, probably from a region as distant as 

 Newfoundland, and no doubt extended seaward at least 150 

 miles. Between the two lobes was formed the interlobate 

 moraine extending from Wood's Holl on Cape Cod to and be- 

 yond Manomet Hill in the neighborhood of Plymouth. 



It was shown that the Nantucket lobe had what might be 

 called a third stage, when it began to melt back from the Cape 

 Cod moraine in the vicinity of West Barnstable, its front still 

 holding on to the east and west. Fresh water was thus held 

 up by the morainal ridge in a re-entrant angle of the retreating 

 ice, bringing into existence Cape Cod Lake. It was during 

 the existence of this lake that the sand plains of Eastern Well-" 

 fleet. Highlands, and Truro were formed. 



It was further shown that Cape Cod Lake had three distinct 

 stages, the Wellfleet, Highlands, and Truro stages, marked by 

 three different levels of its waters and the formation of a par- 

 ticular series of plains. 



Numerous maps and views of the prominent glacial features 

 throughout the region were shown. 



Mr. Read first pointed out that the Southern Appalachian 

 region was one of the earliest to which the search for gold was 

 directed after the discovery of the New World. 



After tracing the early development up to the present, the 

 geological structure of the region and the methods of occurrence 

 of the ore were described. The paper then touched on the 

 present state of the industry and the methods of working, and 

 concluded with a forecast of the probable future worth of the 

 deposits. 



