548 D. W. JOHNSON LOCAL GLACIATION IN WHITE MOUNTAINS 



More than one geologist has reported evidences of local glaciation from 

 the higher levels of the Adirondacks. Kemp in particular has referred 

 in many of his papers to glacial cirques cut in the sides of different peaks, 

 while Ogilvie hriefly describes local moraines "which appear from the 

 clmracter of the drift to have been deposited by glaciers radiating from 

 the center of the Adirondack highlands after the melting of the main 

 body of the ice" (1902, 406). Inasmuch as such descriptions have been 

 for the most part very brief, and have been based on observations made 

 incidental to other geological work, and were, moreover, published before 

 Goldthwait's theory of an early date for the local glaciation had been 

 offered, it seemed desirable critically to examine one or more good ex- 

 amples of the supposed cirques and local moraines with the new point of 

 view in mind. Through the courtesy of Mr. Harold L. Ailing, who con- 

 tributed to our excursions the use of his automobile and his extended 

 knowledge of Adirondack geology, I had the opportunity of making a 

 brief examination of this kind. 



It is scarcely probable that any physiographer who has seen the higher 

 ranges of the Adirondack group will doubt the former existence there of 

 local glaciers. It is true that the cirques are poorly developed, and that 

 they are not to be compared with the far more striking examples found 

 in the Presidential Eange. Many of them might better be styled "in- 

 cipient cirques." Nevertheless they betray the characteristic effects of 

 local ice action. A few miles west of Elizabethtown, looking south from 

 the main road to Keene Valley, one sees three broadly open amphitheaters 

 separated by imperfectly developed aretes, cut in the northeast side of a 

 mountain ridge. Xoonmark Mountain, as seen from Keene Valley, ex- 

 hibits an incipient cirque in its northern slope. Giant Mountain, viewed 

 from Saint Huberts, shows traces of probable local ice action and is 

 scarred by slides presumably due to the oversteepened headwall resulting 

 from incipient cirque-cutting. On Mount Whiteface, one of the highest 

 peaks in the range, the evidence of local ice action is more apparent. 

 Kemp laid special emphasis on the significance of the "amphitheaters or 

 cirques on the slopes of Whiteface*' (1898, 62-63). Plate 39, figure 2, 

 reproducing a photograph taken by the writer from the summit of the 

 peak looking north, shows the asymmetry of crest line characteristic of 

 Alpine ridges and exposes the headwall of a cirque cut in the eastern 

 slope. 



From the form of the incipient cirques in the Adirondack Mountains 

 it might be difficult to determine whether the local glaciation which pro- 

 duced them occurred before or after the continental ice-sheet buried the 

 range; but the evidence of the moraines should be less equivocal. On 



