52 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



in the drift era, was the western part of Labrador. 

 From that spot as a centre the ice went forth, slowly 

 moving, as is the habit of all glaciers, and radiating 

 towards the north and east, but mainly towards the 

 southwest, across Canada, New York, Ohio, Iowa, and 

 Minnesota. In the eastern part of New York, the 

 course of the ice as it slowly moved was south ; and in 

 New England, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, its 

 course became southeast. The greatest distance to 

 which bowlders were transported by the ice was 

 along the southwesterly course, remains having been 

 found as much as twelve hundred miles from where 

 they originally lay. The thickness of the ice in the 

 New England glaciers was something enormous. The 

 ice sheet was so thick that it covered all the highest 

 mountains. Even the summit of Mount Washington 

 itself did not stand out as an island above its surface, 

 but was submerged underneath it. The rocks of the 

 ragged top of Mount Washington were ground by it, 

 and some of them torn away and moved a distance of 

 several miles. The lower or southern rim of this ice 

 cap lay along where Nantucket, the Vineyard, and Long 

 Island stand. And as that rim melted, the material 

 that had been gathered up by the glaciers from the 

 northwest, and that had been frozen into their sub- 

 stance, and then moved down with the slowly creep- 

 ing ice of the glaciers, was deposited, sand, clay, and 

 bowlders, all along the melting rim, forming heaps of 

 unstratilied stuff and ruin, or what are called moraines. 

 One of those terminal moraines of the great glaciers 

 was what is now Nantucket; another was the Vineyard; 

 still others, Block, Long, and Staten Islands. And 



