THE EVIDENCE AS TO RECENT RETREAT. 265 



In some of the inland valleys of the Upper Nugsuak, and particularly 

 on the northern side of the peninsula, small glaciers even now exist, and 

 one of them reaches to the sea.* From this latter glacier there is every 

 gradation down to those that are hardly more than snowbanks, and in 

 some places one is in doubt whether to call them mere banks of snow or 

 glaciers. These are disappearing and represent the last stage in the 

 withdrawal of the ice-sheet. That this is so is proved by two facts. Be- 

 low some of the snowbanks striae are found, showing that they once 

 gathered and transported materials ; also near the small valley glaciers, 

 and especially near the one which reaches the sea, there are fresh striae 

 and bare rock surfaces not now covered by lichens and with the boulders 

 fresh and unaltered. Not only is this true, but in several of the inner 

 valleys there are striae showing former but very recent glacial action 

 where now no glaciers exist. The last phase of the ice occupancy of the 

 Upper Nugsuak was that of the valley glaciers, at first extensive, now 

 shrunken and almost destroyed. Probably this withdrawal is still in 

 progress ; certainly it has recently been. • 



Evidence of recent general retreat is also found on mount Schurman. 

 Upon this peak, rising as it did above the zone of most rapid ice erosion 

 into the clear middle layers of the glacial ice, there is little sign of glacia- 

 tion. Its topography is rugged, and by postglacial weathering the striae 

 have been removed from the bed rock. However, even a small slate 

 pebble has perfectly preserved scratches on the under side where it rested 

 on the ground. It was not embedded at all, but merely laid on the sur- 

 face, and so was partly protected from the air. 



In addition to this evidence that the ice recently overrode the peak, 

 the flora furnishes collateral proof. From the Duck islands up to the 

 very ice margin, even to the nearly surrounded nunatak, mount Hope, 

 the flora is well developed, and there is a great variety of lichens and 

 mosses and great abundance of grasses and various flowering plants ; 

 but on mount Schurman, separated from this land by about 7 or 8 miles 

 of ice, the flora is very different. Mosses, lichens, and some grasses are as 

 abundant as at the end of the peninsula, but flowering plants are rare, 

 excepting in the case of certain species which have light seeds. In other 

 words, the light seeded plants, which can be distributed by the wind, 

 have had time to reach the nunatak and take possession of it since the 

 ice left; but the heavy seeded flowering plants have not found time to 

 take a place on the mountain. 



That these conditions of plant distribution are not due to any climatic 

 features is apparent to any one who knows under what adverse condi- 



* See Tarr : Am. Geologist, vol. xix, April, 1897. 



