8 The American Geologist. January, i904. 
Subsequently, our detailed knowledge of !his subject has 
been much increased through extensive field work by Wright, 
Chamberlin, Salisbury, Leverett, Taylor, Todd, Fairchild, 
Hitchcock, Shaler, Woodworth, the present writer, and many 
others. It is also to be added, with some national pride, that 
two American geologists, Lewis in England, Wales, and Ire- 
land, and Salisbury in Germany, respectively in 1886 and 1888, 
coming from their explorations in this country, were the first 
to recognize, and largely to map and describe, the great mar- 
ginal moraines of the British and continental ice-sheets in 
Europe. 
Earlier, however, than any of these studies, marginal mor- 
aine deposits, observed in the region of the White mountains 
in New Hampshire by Louis Agassiz, had been described by 
him, being attributed to a limited and late local glaciation by 
a remnant of the waning continental ice-sheet.* He wrote of 
the vicinity of Franconia and Bethlehem, N. H., west and north 
of the highest ranges of these mountains, and of Center Harbor 
and Meredith, at the northwest end of lake Winnipesaukee, 
south of the mountains, as follows : 
Twenty-three years ago, when I first visited the White Mountains, 
in the summer of 1847, I noticed unmistakable evidences of the former 
existence of local glaciers. They were the more clear and impressive 
to me because I was then fresh from my investigations of the glaciers in 
Switzerland. And yet, beyond this mere statement of the fact that such 
glaciers once existed here, I have never published a detailed account of 
my observations, for this simple reason, — that I could not then find 
any limit or any definite relation between the northern drift and the 
phenomena indicative of local White mountain glaciers. .. .This year, 
a prolonged stay among these hills has enabled me to study this dif- 
ficult problem more closely 
The finest lateral moraines in these regions may be seen along the 
hill-sides flanking the bed of the south branch of the Ammonoosuc, 
north of the village of Franconia. The best median moraines are to 
the east of Picket hill and Round hill. The latter moraines were formed 
by the confluence of the glacier which occupied the depression between 
the Haystack and Mount Lafayette and that which descended from 
the northern face of Lafayette itself. These longitudinal moraines 
are particularly interesting as connecting the erratic boulders on the 
north side of the Franconia range with that mountain mass, and show- 
ing that Ihey are not northern boulders transported southwards, but 
» Am. Naturalist. Yo}.W, pp. 550-5.-8. 1870; and Proc, A. A. A. S.. 1870. vol. 
xix, pp. 161-167, 1871. This paper is reprinted in full bv Prof. C. H. Hitch- 
cock in Geologv of N. II., vol. iii, pp. 234-238, 1878. 
