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University of California. 



[Vol. 3. 



its grade, the Upper Kern is not uniform. From its head down 

 to the vicinity of Rock Creek it is a series of cascades and rapids, 

 a torrential stream which has cut a notable trench in the glaciated 

 floor of the canon . Below Rock Creek and thence to the vicinity 

 <>f Volcano Creek, where it cuts through a terminal moraine, 

 while still a swift stream, it flows through a timbered meadow, 

 with a more or less sinuous course, in a gravelly bed. 

 This portion of the canon has been aggraded, and the process of 

 aggradation is probably even now incomplete. The depth of the 

 aggradational accumulation is unknown. Below the nose of the 

 moraine, at the mouth of Volcano Creek, the stream is again a 

 series of rapids except for the interruption of two small lakes to 

 be noted particularly later. It has this character as far as in the 

 confluence of the Little Kern, and for a portion of this stretch it 

 was estimated with the aid of an aneroid to have a fall of about 

 200 feet in a mile. As in the portion of the canon above the 

 meadows, it is actively lowering its trench. In general, the 

 grade of the floor of the canon is notably greater than the 

 northward slope of Chagoopa Plateau, so that near the head of 

 the caiion it approaches much more nearly the level of the 

 plateau than in the middle portion of the basin; and in this 

 upper shallower portion of the caiion the walls are not so precip- 

 itous. It here presents the profile of a widely flaring, U-shaped 

 trough (see Plate 34b), whereas, in the middle portion of 

 its course, the profile is that of a steep or nearly vertically 

 sided U. 



The canon of the Upper Kern having been occupied for 24 

 miles of its course by a trunk glacier, it becomes a question of 

 interest to inquire to what extent it has been enlarged by glacial 

 erosion. This question, however, involves immediately a com 

 parison of the glaciated portion of the caiion with the ungla- 

 ciated, below the limit reached by the ice stream; and since this 

 comparison is complicated by certain unique and remarkable 

 features in that portion of the canon which is below the limit of 

 glaciation, it will be necessary to defer this inquiry till these 

 features have been described. In the portion of the paper deal- 

 ing more particularly with the glaciation of the region the 

 question here raised will receive attention. 



