A. C. Lane — White Mountain Physiography. 349 



Art. XXIII. — White Mountain Physiography; by Alfred 



C. Lane. 



Recent reprints by Goldthwait^ and Lobeck-, taken with 

 me on a week's tramp from Lake Kezar over Baldface 

 and through the Carter Notch to Mount Madison, thence 

 along the Presidential Range to the Crawford Notch, 

 thence by train to Lake Winnepesaukee, with a day or two 

 there, added much to the pleasure of the trip, and made 

 it of greater profit geologically than previous visits to 

 the White Mountains. Coming home and comparing 

 them with BarreU's recent papers as edited by Dr. H. H. 

 Robinson,^ his earlier papers,* Fairchild's work,^ and the 

 older work of WoodAvard,^ Daly,'^ and "Wright,^ I have 

 been led to certain thoughts that are perhaps worth 

 brief record, even though I have no great critical disa- 

 greement, nor any mass of new fact to add. For even 

 in the case of scientific testimony, it is well to have con- 

 firmation by the mouth of more than one witness. 



Goldthwait seems to me without doubt right in his 

 recognition of glacial cirques that antedate the culmi- 

 nation of the ice age, when the summit of Mount Wash- 

 ington was overridden. Not only are there the evidences 

 of the glaciated rims of the cirques, as given by him, but 

 it seems to me natural that the local glaciers which, 

 working backward, carved these amphitheaters, should 

 have been the forerunners of the great ice sheet. During 

 a time of increasing glaciation in advance of the main 

 sheet, actively eroding glaciers would naturally form 

 around high peaks. Afterward, during the time of 

 wasting away and recession, as in the recession of a 

 river flood, deposition rather than erosion is the order of 

 the day. As the climate grew milder and the ice front 

 retreated from Long Island and Cape Cod, the ice level 



^J. W. Goldthwait, this Journal (4), 35, 1-19, 1913, and 37, 451, 465, 

 1914; Bull. Geol. Soc. America, 27, 263-294, 1916; see also Ibid., 31, 112, 

 1920. 



- A. K. Lobeck, -Geog. Rev., Jan. 1917, 54-70. 



^Joseph Barren, this Journal (4), 49, especially pp. 407-428, 1920. 



* Joseph Barell, Proc. and Coll., Wyoming Hist, and Geol. Soc, 12, 25-54, 

 1912; Bull. Geol. Soc. America, 24, 696, 1913, with the discussions by John- 

 son and Davis: this Journal (4), 40, 1, 1915. 



^ H. L. Fairchild, Bull. Geol. Soc. America, 29, 209, 1918. 



« R. S. Woodward, U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 48, 1888. 



"R. A. Daly, Jour. Geology, 13, 105, 1905. 



« F., E. Wright, Bull. Geol. Soc. America, 21, 717-730, 1910. 



