ABSENCE OF ESKERS AND KAMES. Zl5 



3,000 feet, and its slope rises from 100 to 250 feet, though a portion of 

 this elevation is doubtless due to a slope of the earth's surface below. 

 This snow remains from year to year and becomes solidified after the 

 fashion of a glacier; indeed, it is little short of a peripheral ribbon-liive 

 glacier, skirting the border of the great ice-cap. Between this and the 

 ice-cap, as a narrow line of division, lies the terminal moraine. The 

 three or four sections across this wliicli were open to observation made it 

 apparent that the moraine was formed by the basal layers of the ice-cap 

 curving upw^ard on encountering the resistance of the wind-drift border 

 in front. The upward movement may have been initiated by a con- 

 cealed moraine below, but superficially, at least, it would appear that 

 even solidified snow in great mass is sufficient to deflect the advancing 

 layers of ice, paradoxical as this certainly seems. 



ESKERS AND KaMES. 



No eskers or kames were seen in process of formation exce2)t in min- 

 iature type. Nothing of the kind was seen upon the backs of glaciers? 

 because, with trivial exceptions, there was no material there from which 

 to form them. The basal drainage of the glaciers was found to be chiefly 

 accomplished by streams running along the sides of the glacial lobes. 

 The central tunnels which most alpine glaciers possess were generally 

 absent. The lateral streams frequently tunneled under the glacier or 

 were bridged by snow-drifts, and doubtless when the ice has vanished 

 there will be found terraces and side ridges of gravel analogous to one of 

 the fonns of eskers of our drift, but nothing distinct or tyi)ical was seen. 

 The radical reason lies, I suppose, in the fact that the total drainage is 

 too small and too narrowly confined to the summer months. 



So also, in regard to the kames, it was observed that the drainage from 

 the terminal slo[)c of the ice-cap usually followed the inner side of the 

 terminal moraine for greater or less distances until a low spot was found 

 across which it made its way. These transverse channels doubtless afford 

 an illustration of the manner in which the gravel accumulates on the 

 inner side of a moraine during its growth, and is subject all the time to 

 disturbance by the movement of the ice ; but here again only illustrative 

 phenomena were seen. 



My observations, therefore, seem to have but one important bearing 

 upon our theories as to kames and eskers. The debris of the great ice- 

 sheet is confined to its lower ])orti()n, with trivial excei)tions. It is almost 

 absolutely wanting in the upper })()rti()n and on the surface. The lioiglits 

 at which it is found in tlu; Icjwer jjortion are not greater (lian [\ni liciglits 

 of kames and eskers ; therefore, unless we resort to the violent hypotliesis 



XXX-Bii.i.. ffEoL. Sue. Am.. Vol. G. 1894. 



