of the Northern Cat skill Mountains. 157 



Each is held in by a morainic dam and lies below steep-sided 

 mountain hollows, which strikingly resemble cirques. At the 

 head of the valley above Balsam Lake are forms which on the 

 contour map look exceedingly like cirques. Unfortunately 

 time did not permit their examination. The head of the 

 valley above Beecher Lake as seen from the lower end of 

 the lake appears "hanging" and decidedly cirque-like. Above 

 Alder Lake the same conditions are even more conspicuous 

 (fig. 8). A profile of Alder Creek (fig. 9) brings out the step- 

 like character of the upper part of the valley. Following down 

 the valley along the road, one at first descends rapidly on a 



Fig. 9. 



Fig. 9. Profile through Alder Lake to top of Mill Brook Ridge. Shows 

 pronounced steps in valley bottom. 



steep grade, then crosses a nearly flat area through which the 

 stream has cut a deep gorge in drift, after which another rela- 

 tively steep descent is encountered ; then comes the hollow in 

 which the lake lies, and finally the steep descent at its foot. 

 These steps in the valley bottom appear to be drift rather than 

 rock. Above the lake they are characterized by smooth topog- 

 raphy as if they had been overridden by ice. The loop which 

 forms the lake, however, is hummocky, at least in part. 



About a mile below Beecher Lake the hill, or broad ridge, 

 which the road follows after leaving the stream is apparently 

 composed of drift — at least no bed rock appeared in cuts along 

 the road. Its surface, however, is smooth and non-hummocky, 

 and suggests that it may have been overridden by ice. The 

 till here, as exposed in the road cuts, has a yellowish, weathered 

 look which gave the impression that it is older than the latest 

 glacial period. This is merely an impression, but one, never- 

 theless, which is believed to be not without foundation. 



The topography and the appearance of the drift left the 

 impression that moraines of an earlier epoch have been over- 

 ridden, and that subsequently a final late stand of the ice has 



