LEBANON GLACIER 639 



It was oiily as we approached Bsherreh, near the headwaters of the Kadlsha, 

 that true signs of glaoiation appeared. Here, at an elevation of 5,300 feet, 

 the front of a moraine extends from one side of the valley to the other, a 

 distance of about four miles. The moraine consists of limestone fragments 

 of all sizes from vast blocks down to fine powder, derived from the hippurite 

 limestone forming the crest of the mountain a few miles bade. In the middle 

 of the valley the precipitous face of this moraine is several hundred feet 

 thick, and is suffering erosion from a powerful current of water which issues 

 as a spring from its base, this being the drainage from the whole area of 

 the moraine back of it. Through the action of this stream a triangular area 

 has been eroded from the moraine, ending in an acute angle, wliere the water 

 emerges from beneatli the surface. No scratched stones were found in the 

 moraine, which is doubtless due to the fact that the material has been brought 

 from only a short distance, and probably had for the most part been borne 

 upon the surface of the ice, whither it had fallen from the overhanging ledges 

 at the summit of the mountain. But that it was of glacial origin is certain 

 from the promiscuous intermingling of coarse and fine fragments and from 

 the impossibility of its having been brought into position through the action 

 of gravity upon an ordinary talus, and still further from the topography of the 

 area extending 4 or 5 miles back toward the head of the valley. 



Upon ascending to the summit of this moraine, we find that it extends about 

 5 miles toward the apex of the valley and presents everywhere the knoll and 

 bowl topography characteristic of a true terminal moraine. The grove of 

 cedars which makes the region celebrated is growing upon the upper part of 

 this moraine, at an elevation of 6,300 feet above the sea. Standing on the 

 eastern edge of this grove, one sees the highest summit of the Lebanon range, 

 some 3 or 4 miles distant, with a triangular depression, 100 or 200 feet below 

 him, which was evidently occupied bj^ ice during the last stages of the declin- 

 ing glacier, which had poured down from the small plateau on the summit 

 through a narrow trough, clearly visible, and spread out as it had opportunity 

 over the expanding area of the valley. 



Upon ascending the summit, one finds a plateau, of several square miles, 

 where the snows gathered during the Glacial epoch in sufficient quantity to 

 supply the glacial ice that pushed down into the valley of the Kadisha, a dis- 

 tance of 8 or 9 miles, and to a level which is about one-half of the total 

 height of the mountain above the sea. 



Upon descending the mountain into Coelesyria toward Ba'albek, we could 

 find no signs of glacial action. In the local valley of a small stream which 

 runs between the eastern foothills and the main range of Lebanon and cTis- 

 appears in the sink of the Yamuneh, there is an immense accumulation of 

 gravel, which in places appears in ridgelike accumulations, extending across 

 the valley, which was evidently deposited by streams rushing down the steep 

 side of the mountain and projecting the material brought down far out 

 beyond the base, while occasionally there were immense boulders nearly a 

 quarter of a mile from the base, which probably were carried out so far by 

 their own momentum, attained in rolling down from a great height. 



This moraine at the head of the Kadisha river, upon which the cedars of 

 Lebanon are growing, has all tlie marks of youth which characterize the 

 glacial deposits of America and Europe. The bowls upon the surface have not 



