217 
PLEISTOCENE PAPERS AT THE ROCHESTER 
MEETINGS. 
During the sessions of tlie Geological Society of America, 
August 15 and 16, and of Section E (Geology and Geography) 
of the American x\ssociation for the Advancement of Science, 
August 17-22, 1892, in Rochester, N. Y., a consideral)le number 
of papers, which are here briefly noticed, related to the Pleisto- 
cene period. 
(iEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 
Studies of the Connecticut Valley Glacier. By C. H. Hitch- 
cock. The portion of the Connecticut river valley described in 
this paper extends from Lyme and Hanover south to Claremont, 
N. H. On each side of the valley the enclosing hills and uplands 
rise within a few miles to a hight of 500 feet or more above the 
river. Glacial stria? on these highlands bear somewhat uniformly 
about S. 30° E., while in the valley their prevailing direction is 
to the south or slighU' west of south, conforming with the course 
of this depression. Bowlders and other drift materials have been 
transported in these diverse directions, southeastward on the higher 
countiy and southward in the valley. But occasionally stria? of an 
earlier southeastward glaciation are also found in the valley, pre- 
served in hollows or on sheltered parts of the rock surface and sur- 
rounded by the marks of the southward ice-flow. Either the cur- 
rents of the ice-sheet were here deflected southward during a late 
stage of the general glaciation, or a local glacier lingered in this 
valley after the ice on the higher land was melted, the latter being 
regarded by the author as the more probable explanation. 
In the ensuing discussion, Mr. Warren Upham spoke of the 
Connecticut valley esker (called a kame in the Geology of New 
Hampshire, vol. iii), which was traced twenty-four miles along 
the axis of this portion of the valley from Lyme, N. H. . south 
to Windsor, Vt. When the receding border of the ice-sheet had 
become thinned by ablation, its surface here descended from each 
side toward the superglacial river by which the esker was being 
formed, and there was probably an indentation or embaymeut of 
the glacial boundary at the river s mouth. The glacial currents 
which had before passed southeastward even in the bottom of the 
valley appear to have then turned to the south and west of south, 
being deflected perpendicularly toward the indented edge of the 
waning ice-sheet. 
