DATE OF CIRQUE-CUTTING IN THE CATSKILLS 549 



this point we may take as a test case the features which characterize one 

 of the valleys cnt on the northern flanks of Whiteface. This valley lies 

 just east of Esther Mountain, and as it faces northward it was exposed 

 to the full impact of the southward-moving continental ice. In form 

 the valley approaches that of a glacial trough, while its headward portion 

 suggests incipient cirque-cutting. On the floor of the trough is a narrow 

 ridge of debris (plate 40, figure 1), about three-quarters of a mile in 

 length. Its form is that of a glacial moraine, not that of a landslide 

 ridge or rock glacier. The fact that it declines distinctly down valley 

 toward the north shows that it was deposited by a northward-moving 

 local glacier, not by a southward-moving tongue of the main ice-sheet. 

 It is scarcely conceivable that this delicate ridge of loose debris could 

 have retained its form if overridden by the continental ice. We must 

 conclude that the local glacier which deposited the moraine existed after 

 the continental ice had disappeared from the region. 



Date of Cirque-cutting in the Catskill Mountains 



Evidences of local glaciation in the Catskill Mountains have been pre- 

 sented by Eich (1906; 1915), who quotes Chamberlin and Smock as 

 having earlier suggested the probability of such action. The phenomena 

 reported by Eich were so remarkable, especially when one considers the 

 more southerly position of the Catskills as compared with the Adiron- 

 dacks and White Mountains and the low altitude (about 2,000 feet) at 

 which the local glaciation was supposed to have occurred, that no little 

 doubt attached to his conclusions. I was therefore glad of an oppor- 

 tunity to join Prof. C. P. Berkey on a visit to the localities described by 

 Eich, and particularly glad to have as our companion Professor de Mar- 

 tonne, whose glacial studies in the Alps and Carpathians made his criti- 

 cal judgment of peculiar value in so problematical a case. 



We directed our attention especially to two localities near the heads of 

 Little West Kill and Fly Brook valleys respectively. The writer's experi- 

 ence in other portions of the Appalachian Plateau province led him to 

 suspect the danger of landslides from the heads of normal stream amphi- 

 theaters cut back in the horizontal sandstones and shales of the Catskill 

 region; and the fact that slides and rock glaciers sometimes simulate 

 morainic topography was kept in mind. A casual inspection of the hill- 

 sides about the Little West Kill A^alley showed that the slopes were suf- 

 fering to an extraordinary degree from creeping and slumping (plate 41, 

 figures 1 and 2), and that special care must be exercised to discriminate 

 between slide topography and true moraine. The former presence of the 



