352 A. C. Lane — White Mountain Physiography. 



cordant level which F. E. Wright has emphasized in his 

 Iceland studies, and to which Daly refers (op. cit., p. 119). 

 This stage of the ice top must surely have occurred during 

 the waxing and waning stages of the Wisconsin, but it is 

 easy also to imagine that when the ice moved out in 

 earlier parts of the ice age from the Keewatin and 

 Patricia centers, it reached the Wliite Mountains, but did 

 not altogether bury them, especially if they stood higher. 



De Geer finds a relatively long halt in the recession of 

 the ice in Scandinavia, and the level of the ice cap top at 

 such a time may be registered in the ^4awn*' level. 



Thus, while it may be well to suspend judgment, as 

 Goldthwait does, I am inclined to agree with Lobeck that 

 these are not remnants of the ' ' New England peneplane ' ' 

 but of an ^^ accordant level" produced as described by 

 Daly and Wright. There ought to be remnants of such 

 a level. The ^'Felsenmeer" which Daly has emphasized 

 as characteristic is well marked on all the peaks, and 

 even the lower till is largely of angular blocks which I 

 can easiest conceive of as the result of avalanches from 

 nunataks on to the old ice surface, which have been 

 allowed to settle gently without being compacted as the 

 ice sheet wasted away. 



Wright's study of the cycle of ice sheet erosion is well 

 worthy of careful consideration. 



But while I agree with Lobeck that the ' ' New England 

 peneplane," as commonly understood, '^ends abruptly 

 at the foot of the White Mountains, ' ' where its elevation 

 is about 1000 feet A. T. and it shows even better in the 

 field than in his photographs, I agree with Barrell that 

 it is a plain of marine denudation. The notch in the hills 

 is distinct and like a sea-cliff, and most so where they 

 faced the broad Atlantic. I should interpret it as 

 probably corresponding to BarrelPs ^^ Litchfield terrace" 

 of the Pliocene, which on this projecting salient had cut 

 so far back as in general to pass and obliterate the earlier 

 and higher ^^ Goshen" and 'VCornwall" terraces, and in 

 some places the higher ^ ' Canaan ' ' and ^ ' Becket ' ' terraces. 

 In fact, the Tertiary elevations were slow enough or 

 lasted long enough to pretty well dissect the 2600-foot 

 peneplane, and so far as one can tell after the glacial 

 filling that followed, to adjust the rivers at least to the 

 1000-foot level. Barrell has two or three terraces of 

 Tertiary time below the Litchfield, but to find traces of 



