
GLACIERS IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 285 
in Gilead, in the railroad cutting just between the two cross- 
ings of the common road, there is a steep ledge about twenty 
feet high, close to the track, which is polished and furrowed 
both upon the nearly vertical face towards the river, and 
also upon a narrow horizontal shelf part way up on the 
ledge. The lines upon the horizontal shelf run s. 20° E., 
the vertical face standing s.-25° to 30° £. Itis necessary, 
however, to be guarded in drawing conclusions from glacial 
traces left upon vertical or steeply inclined surfaces; as the 
movement of ice, jamming through a narrow passage, may be 
locally disturbed, so as to give a direction to the furrows 
quite different from that of the general movement of the 
glacier. This was most likely the case at the point above 
referred to; as the furrows on the opposite side of the hill, 
i.e. the south side, run s. 80° x.; thus according much 
more nearly with the traces both above and below this point 
than the furrows upon the steep face towards the river do. 
The ice would seem to have passed around both sides of this 
hill; and we can readily conceive that this might be, since 
the depression in the rear, south of the elevation, is quite 
low. Indeed, in the fine view from “Sunset Rock,” in 
Bethel, looking up the Androscoggin, Peaked Hill seems to 
tise in a very isolated manner from the middle of the valley, 
which makes it a very prominent feature in that magnificent 
picture. 
Continuing up towards Gilead, about a mile above Peaked 
Hill, and eight miles from Bethel, at a point where the 
mountains crowd in close upon the river, there occurs a 
little south of the road, and it may be three hundred feet 
above the river, a large, steeply inclined, and magnificently 
Polished surface, which is very plainly seen from the road a 
mile and a half below, as it sweeps around the western base 
of Peaked Hill. This surface shows a very few faint lines ; 
but just below it may be seen well-defined furrows upon 
quartz, running s. 55° to 60° E. Ata little more than nine 
miles from Bethel, upon the side of the common road, where 
