39S JV^e A'inerird)) Geologist. Docember, 1895 
sheet slunild have been weaker than that of the second: and it is most 
remarkable of all that the first continental glacier should have failed to 
deposit moraine ridges and other sediments which usually belong to 
land ice. The case, however, becomes both simple and natural if each 
of the above groups of facts be regarded as more or less mai-ginal, be- 
longing in one and the same ice epoch. The smaller amount of erosion 
and weaker glaciation outside of the terminal moraines need with this 
conception no separate explanation. 
••Other proofs, considered even more imjjortant. are derived from the 
extensive oxidation and erosion which the oldest glacial drift has under- 
gone, and which are supposed to have required a very long interglacial 
epoch: and finally, the vegetation and interglacial forest, layers imbed- 
ded in the drift bounded by the moraines are thought to be specially 
significant. 
•'But the oxidation of the oldest drift (the fringe) is characteristic of 
the eastern as well as of the western border of the glaciated area. It is 
very thorough, showing a strong yellow-brovvu or reddish color, and in 
some instances it extends to a depth of twenty or thirty feet, and is as 
thorough at the bottom as near the top. This is the case in the region 
of Oxford Furnace, N. J., where the writer, under the guidance of 
Salisbury, had a chance to get acquainted with it in 1891. But in this 
locality, considered especially important, the oxidation appeared to be 
entirely too deep, too luiiform downward, and altogether too thorough, 
to have taken place during the Quaternary era. Clearly the material of 
which the sediments in question are formed must have been already 
strongly oxidized before it was deposited. The oxidation was thus pre- 
glacial." [Reference is here made in a footnote to my reports upon the 
region as in hai-mony with the author's.] "The writer has come to this 
conclusion in view of the experience which he has had in Sweden in ob- 
serving the Quaternary oxidation and weathering, which decrease gen- 
erally downward .... 
••Salisbury has besides, together with C-hamberlin, published facts 
derived from their American investigations which give a more correct 
estimation of the extent of the Quaternary oxidation. They state that 
the loess is often oxidized to a depth of four to five feet, and also in some- 
places deeper. But it is very hard to understand why the interglacial 
oxidation should have affected the Mississippi loess and the older New 
Jersey glacial deposits in such very unlike manner, although they were 
formed at the same time, or at least during some part of the first ice 
age." 
After discussing the nature and supposed extent of the interglacial ero- 
sion, and outlining the theories of CliamVierlin and Salisbury concern- 
ing the loess, Dr. Hoist speaks of the light thrown upon this deposit by 
the '"kryokonite." or dust found on the Greenland ice-sheet, which, he 
savs. shows a complete resemblance to the loess, and. "if the writer is 
not mistaken, is the origin of a similar mud-making process with that 
which has produced the loess. The water which circulates upon and 
beneath the outer portions of the ice washes the finer material which is 
