1 54 The American Geologist. September, i898 
scanty forest growth of dark firs and occasional white Ijirches. 
The gravel and sand terraces and deltas, occurring at all hights 
up to the old sea level (and less plentifully represented at slight 
altitudes above the bottoms of the valleys along their upper 
courses before reaching the Champlain level), record nuich of 
the history of the glacial recession and the concurrent uplift- 
ing of the land from its subsidence. The lack of large alluvial 
areas at the mouths of these rivers seems to testify that the re- 
elevation at first surpassed the present hight; but to learn all 
the details of the epeirogenic oscillations, with pauses, which 
the region has undergone, so far as they can be read in these 
valleys, would require probably a whole summer of field work. 
The most important comparison with America that I dis- 
cern for the Trondhjem raised shorelines consists in their 
scantiness, which is fully paralleled by Maine, the Eastern 
Canadian provinces, and the St. Lawrence valley. Although 
the land there at the close of the Ice age was on large coastal 
tracts 300 to 600 feet lower than now, as in Norway and 
Sweden, its emergence occupied too brief time to allow the 
waves to carve the shores deeply or amass well ^developed 
and generally continuous beach ridges. 
GLACIAL GEOLOGY IN AMERICA.* 
By Herman L. Fairchild Rochester, N. Y. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The life of this Association, with that of its predecessor, 
covers precisely the period since the glacial theory w-as intro- 
duced to American geologists. It seems highly appropriate, 
upon the occasion of the jubilee meeting of this society, to re- 
view briefly the history and growth of glacial geology in 
America and to give credit to the men who were pioneers or 
who have been most influential in the development of this 
young and vigorous branch of earth-study. 
In the limits of this paper it is impossible to call the roll of 
*Vice-presidential address. Section of Geology and Geography. 
A. A. A. S., Aug., 1898. 
