EXISTENCE OF OTHER GLACIERS 445 



Hitchcock* has suggested that during the time when the Saint Law- 

 rence valley was depressed to a considerable depth below the present level, 

 local glaciers from several different centers invaded that bay, and that, 

 since this was during the last stages of the glacial period, it is the evi- 

 dence from this source which has led the Canadian geologists to the view 

 that a Canadian ice-sheet has not invaded the New England states. I 

 wish to bring this forward as a rational working hypothesis, even though 

 I have no facts to add to it at the present time. The principal reason 

 for bringing it forward at this time is my conviction that such an event 

 is to be expected as one of the closing episodes of the ice invasion. Some 

 evidence in support of the belief in such a condition of ice movement has 

 already been presented by the Canadian geologists. 



Indeed it seems that this hypothesis would, if proved, harmonize the 

 conflicting views of the American and Canadian schools of glacial geol- 

 ogists. There is in New England a sufficient amount of highland to 

 carry snow fields of large size, from which glaciers might radiate in all 

 directions, much as w-e now find in portions of Greenland, and as has 

 been so clearly proved to have been the condition in the British isles. 

 There is good reason for believing that the Greenland glacier formerly 

 advanced over Disco island ; but now, the great ice-sheet having with- 

 drawn from it, the highland of that island forms a separate center of gla- 

 ciation. The glaciers from this center of distribution are now shrinking 

 and have in the past been much more extensive than at present. The 

 normal conditions of ice advance and retreat, as I conceive them, would 

 first of all cause local centers of distribution, then general glaciation, 

 which would last until, finally, the highest glaciers had dwindled down 

 to mere snow banks, which themselves would at last disappear. This 

 conception, applied to Maine, is more fully stated in the section which 

 follows. 



A Conception of the Glacial Period in Maine 



With the coming of the glacial conditions, the loftier New England 

 mountains, being subjected to the conditions of cold, must have accu- 

 mulated snow fields and sent out valley glacier tongues which coalesced 

 with others. The conditions of glaciation increased until, from large 

 centers, extensive sheets of ice moved outward in all directions, much 

 as the British geologists have proved to have been the condition among 

 the highland centers of the British isles. With the onward march of 

 the ice-sheets from the different centers, there was a coalescing, first of 

 the smaller, then of the larger masses, until at last the union of the 



*>Bull. Geo!. Soc. Am., vol. 7. 1896, pp. 3, 4. 



