640 PROCEEDINGS OF THE KEW YORK MEETING 



been extensively filled up with sediment and the knolls have not been greatly 

 diminished in height. The erosion by the stream issuing from the front of 

 the glacier is comparatively limited in extent. More careful study of it may 

 yet shed some light on the time that has elapsed since glacial accumulation 

 ceased .at the margin, but at present we have no data from which to make 

 calculations. 



An interesting subject of inquiry concerns the relation of this glacier to 

 the ancient water-levels in the Jordan valley. It has been pretty generally 

 assumed that the expansion of the Dead sea shown by the sedimentary terraces 

 which surround the valley at an elevation of 650 feet, and, as Hull maintains, 

 at an elevation of 1,400 feet, was the direct result of the glacial conditions in 

 the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains. Even though no glacial streams 

 could reach the Jordan valley from the Lebanon mountains, it is maintained 

 that the increased precipitation and diminished evaporation of the region 

 during that epoch would result in filling the .Jordan valley with a body of water 

 200 miles long, 30 or 40 miles wide, and at its southern end 2,000 feet deep. 



It is possible, however, to interpret the facts in a different way, and make 

 the glaciation of the Lebanon mountains an effect of the increased area of the 

 Dead sea rather than the cause. There is abundant evidence that the land 

 all along the shore of the Mediterranean has risen 2.50 or 300 feet during the 

 most recent geological era. Raised beaches containing shells of the same 

 species that are now living in the Red sea and the Mediterranean are found 

 near the pyramids in Egypt and in the vicinity of Jaffa and Lattakia, on the 

 eastern shore of the Mediterr-anean. Now, if the land of this region were 

 to be depressed 300 feet, it would admit the water of the Mediterranean into 

 the Jordan depression through the valley of Esdraelon between Nazareth and 

 mount Carmel. It is qiiite possible that the filling of the valley with water 

 during that depression may have been the cause of the greater precipitation 

 which produced the conditions favorable to the formation of the Lebanon 

 glacier. If so, the various means we have of estimating the date of that 

 depression of land may aid us in determining the approximate date of tlie 

 Lebanon glacier. The general aspect of this moraine and the specific evidence 

 bearing on the date of the enlargement of the Dead sea all point to these 

 occurrences as comparatively modern events, estimated in tens of thousands 

 of years rather than of hundreds of thousands of years. 



Eemarks were made by H. C. Hovey and the author. 



ICE PFESEXT DUIilXG THE FORMATION OF GLACIAL TERRACES 



BY F. P. GULLIVER 



[Abstract] 



This paper described with maps and latern slides some glacial deposits 

 along the Connecticut. Thames, and Quinebaug rivers which have usually been 

 classed with the terraces formed by the down-cutting of the rivers. An 

 example of terraces which have surely been carved by river action is found 

 in the Westfield river west of Springfield, Massachusetts. 



The deposits described along the Connecticut rivei-s were contrasted with 

 those found at Westfield. and it was shown, that they must have been formed 



