IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 267 
curious oblong crystals of albitic feldspar. Our guide 
to their source—the trusty ice-grooves—point to Peaked 
Mountain, a peak lying perhaps half an hours walk 
‘in a direction north 10° west. Under their guidance, 
and by occasionally following the paths made by bears 
through the stunted growth of spruce, we find the parent 
rock from which they had been torn, on the summit of 
Peaked Mountain, which is composed of this peculiar 
porphyry. 
Passing through Evans’ Notch into the valley of the 
Androscoggin, in the town of Gilead, we find marks on 
a ledge near the river, which follow a general north-west 
and south-east direction. This is the general course of 
the Androscoggin River at this place. Following this 
river to its mouth, where it empties near the sea-shore into 
the Kennebec River, the traces of glaciers observed at 
Bethel, Lewiston, and Brunswick show that a stream of 
ice once filled the valley throughout its whole length, 
om the mountains to the sea. 
There was also a Peabody River glacier, which joined 
the Androscoggin glacier, as we may call it, at the junc- 
tion of those two rivers near the Alpine House, at Gor- 
ham, N. H. A geological friend has detected on the 
north-east side of Mount Washington, on the carriage 
road, glacial grooves which point down the Peabody 
valley. . 
Thus we see the traces of five distinct ancient glaciers, — 
ing as many river valleys, descending from the higher 
peaks of the White Mountains. In rounding off the tops 
of the mountains, scooping out the valleys, and levelling 
with their moraines the deep depressions in the surface 
of the earth, they were important agents in preparing the 
way for the advent of man, who should till the soil they 
