COMPARISON OF THE GLACIAL PHENOMENA OF 
NEW ENGLAND WITH THOSE OF EUROPE. 
BY A. S. PACKARD, JR. 
Laii 
Dure a hurried tour through the Alps and Norway, I endeav- 
ored to observe marks of ancient glaciers in those countries in 
order to compare them with the phenomena to be observed in our 
northern states. The impression made on my mind, and I doubt 
not on that of other Americans who have travelled in the Alps 
and Scandinavia, was that the evidences of the former presence of 
glaciers, in valleys at the heads of which are glaciers now exist- 
ing, were scarcely more distinct than in the valleys of the White 
Mountains, of the Adirondacks and even the coast of New Eng- 
land. , i 
As one approaches the Alps from the valley leading from Munich 
up to Kempten, it could be readily seen that near the lower moun- 
tains the valleys were flanked by rounded moraines, clothed with 
pines and firs, and no better marked than those in the valley of the 
Saco aboùt Conway. Their presence was revealed by the clearings 
made in the forests in the same manner as in the White Mountains 
and the Adirondacks. In one important feature the marks were 
less apparent, as one does not see in the Alps the broad trains of 
boulders so common in New England, since they have been artific- 
ially removed * during centuries of occupation of the country. 
Tt was more difficult to detect striated and rounded rocks in the 
Alpine valleys than I had imagined from the accounts of Alpine 
geologists and travellers. 
It was wonderful how nature has sought as it were to ciii ? 
the work of the ice period, through atmospheric agencies, in re- 
modelling the materials of moraines, in reducing their former pro- 
portions and covering them up by the rapid growth of forests. 
The same process has gone on in northeastern America, and it 1s 
not improbable that about the same amount of time has been con- 
sumed in the work ; namely, the ice Aco was contemporary in 
* Penfa shoe a. PEN h b lders below 
rofessor a bury & e ps sandi 
ny of 
the reach of the plough. Th posi 
— while others, as with us, have been used for building fences. In some ei o 
remarkable boulders. (See NATURALIST, 
a 
prie 
