Report of Meetings for 189 1. By Dr J. Hardy. 261 



have been formed, has recently received considerable attention 

 in North America. I shall quote a summary of the conclusions 

 arrived at by one of the investigators, T. T. Bouve, from the 

 " Proceedings of the Boston (U.S.) Society of Natuial History," 

 1890, p. 180. 



"Intimately connected with Kames are depressions in the 

 surface. Their origin, formerly a puzzle to students of Glacial 

 phenomena, is no longer so, as Nature has been detected in the 

 very act of their formation. From observations of Dr G. F. 

 Wright, upon the Glaciers of Alaska, he found that when a very 

 considerable surface of ice-sheet had been covered over to any 

 depth with earth material, rocks, pebbles and sand, the ice thus 

 prevented from melting beneath remained intact, whilst all more 

 exposed over the field sunk away and finall}- disappeared. The 

 result of this would be to leave a great mass, sometimes of large 

 area, to settle as the Glacier retreated from it, with enormous 

 weight upon the subsoil below. Here it would remain until it 

 melted, and it might require the heat of many summers to effect 

 its entire dissolution, protected as it would be from the sun's 

 rays by its earthy covering. As, however, the melting pro- 

 gressed, this covering matter would necessarily slide down around 

 its margin, producing ridges and hillocks of material, the forms 

 of which would be more or less modified by the running water 

 from the ice as it dissolved away. With the accumulated 

 quantity of matter thus deposited, the resting-place of the ice- 

 mass would be much below the surrounding surface." 



The writer considers that "the Glacier during the greater 

 part of its existence, had less to do with the transportation of 

 the Kame material than when passing away, aided as it then 

 was by the torrents of water that flowed over its surface, and 

 swept the hills of all moveable matter as they emerged from the 

 melting ice. The writer is strongly induced to this view, as it 

 will satisfactorily account for the immense quantity of stones, 

 gravel, and sand deposited by the Glacier when it finally dis- 

 appeared from the surface." (p. 181.) 



The re-assorted mounds are still more numerous between 

 Ellingham and Ohathill. There was not time to examine them, 

 but I have among Mr Tate's papers, several particulars about 

 them, which I shall preserve in the Appendix, (Appendix A.) as 

 everything that he has written deserves attention, being the 



