136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ALBANY MEETING 



DATE OF LOCAL GLACIATION IN THE '>VHITE MOUNTAINS, ADIRONDAOKS, 



AND GAT SKILLS 



BY DOUGLAS W. JOHNSON 



{Abstract) 



Professor Goldthwait has presented evidence indicating that the cirques and 

 other topographic features of the White Mountains, due to local glaciation, 

 were formed before the advance of the great ice-sheet and not after its retreat. 

 Certain details of White Mountain physiographj^ are capable of simple expla- 

 nation on the basis of this suggestive hypothesis. It is believed, however, that 

 they may also be explained without postulating so early a date for the local 

 glaciation, whereas other elements of the topography seem to require appre- 

 ciable activity'' of local glaciers after the continental ice had disappeared from 

 the White, Adirondack, and Catskill Mountains. 



Presented in abstract extemporaneously. 



Discussion" 



Prof. J. W. Goldthwait : Until now I had supposed that local moraines 

 should be expected wherever strongly developed cirques gave evidence of recent 

 vigorous glaciation of valleys ; but if cirques in the Carpathians and elsewhere 

 are unaccompanied by local moraines, and there is no possibility there of sub- 

 sequent regional glaciation, then of course lack of local moraines should not 

 have been used in the White Mountains as a criterion to fix the date of the 

 local cirque-cutting glaciers around Mount Washington. A piece of evidence 

 which is pertinent to this question of the date of local glaciers in the White 

 Mountains appears in three lantern slides which I ask leave to show. These 

 photographs, taken near the upper part of the headwall of the Ravine of the 

 Castles, a cirque on Mount Jefferson, show ledges which have the form of 

 "roches moutonnees," made by the continental ice-sheet as it pushed southeast- 

 ward against the headwall and ascended it. Although the ledges fail to show 

 grooves, being made of mica schist roughened by exposure to the weather, 

 their form is as characteristic as that of ledges which, in any other situation 

 in the glaciated area, would be accepted without question as evidence of the 

 passage of the ice-sheet ; and the trend of the "roches moutonnees" is parallel 

 to striae on neighboring veins of quartz. 



At this point the scientific papers were clisconti]niecl for the purpose of 

 attending a public address given in Chancellor's Hall on "The Pulse of 

 Life," by Prof. Richard S. Lull, of Yale ITniversity. 



At the conclusion of the address the session was adjourned for the day, 

 to reconvene on the following morning at 9 o'clock. 



ANNUAL DINNER 



The annual dinnei- ol* the Society was held at the Ten Eyck Hotel on 

 Wednesday evening, about 17 5 pcrsoiis participating. Prof. B. K. Emer- 



