348 



University of California. 



[Vol. 3. 



as it emerged from beneath the ice, the embankment representing 

 an overwash at the snont of the glacier. This involves the lifting 

 of the stream bed at the snout of the glacier to the summit of the 

 embankment. The writer, not having both hypotheses in mind 

 while in the field, could not now decide as to which is the more 

 probable without a reexamination of the field evidence. 



A mile above Coyote Creek a much larger moraine spans the 

 bottom of the Kern Canon from wall to wall. This moraine is 

 also rather acutely V-shaped in ground plan, and at the apex of 

 the V the Kern River bisects it. The crest of this moraine along 

 both limbs of the V is about half a mile in length, and its average 

 height is about 100 feet. The cross section of the moraine has 

 an area of about 2000 square yards and its total value is, there- 

 fore, about 2,000,000 cubic yards. If now, we regard the volumes 

 of the terminal moraines as proportional to the time necessary 

 for their accumulation, it appears that the front of the glacier 

 maintained itself at the second moraine about 40 times longer 

 than at the first moraine, the limit of its southern extension. If, 

 on the other hand, we estimate the time as proportional to the 

 areas of the cross sections of the moraines, then the ice front 

 maintained itself at the second moraine about 16 times as long as 

 at the first moraine. 



If the retreat of the ice front, from the first moraine to the 

 second, had been fitful and slow, we should expect to find evi- 

 dence of that fact in a series of minor moraines of retreat. No 

 such intervening moraines appear to exist, and it is probable, 

 therefore, that the retreat of the ice front from the first position 

 to the second was a steady and rather rapid movement. The 

 profile of the second moraine is severely simple, and there is no 

 evidence of wavering or fluctuation of the position of the ice 

 front during the accumulation of the moraine. 



Above this second moraine there are no other terminal 

 moraines in the canon, nor moraines of any other kind for about 

 16 or 17 miles, when we come to a fine series of lateral moraines 

 above the mouth of East Fork. There is no evidence of retreat 

 by stages, and the inference seems clear that when the ice front 

 vacated the position outlined by the second moraine it retreated 

 up the canon steadily and probably fairly rapidly. 



