Upha.ii.] 2 [Nov. 16, 
Tlie following paper was read : — 
THE ORIGIN OF DRUjALLINS. 
BY WARREN UPHAM. 
Co7itents. 
PAGE. 
1. Varieties of drumlins and tlieir areal distribution . 2 
2. Objections to former theories of tlie origin of drum- 
lins ......... 7 
o. Probable accumulation of the drumlins from engla- 
cial drift 8 
4. Review of objections to this explanation . . .13 
5. Comparison with terminal moraines, kames, and 
eskers ......... 15 
1. VARIETIES OF DRUMLINS AND THEIR AREAL DISTRIBUTION. 
Among the phases of the glacial and modified drift, comprising 
together all the deposits formed by the ice-sheet and the water of its 
melting, no other is so fully and distinctly developed in Boston and 
its neighborhood as the drumlins. These drift hills therefore have 
been brought often before the attention of our Societ}^ during the 
past twenty-two years by Professors Shaler^ Wright"^, Hitchcock*, 
Davis*, and Crosby^, and by the present writer.^ More recently, 
during the years 1890 to 1892, the drumlins of the entire State 
of Massachusetts have been mapped and carefully studied by Mr. 
George H. Barton, under the direction of Prof. N. S. Shaler, for 
the United States Geological Survey. Their total number is 
found to be about 1,500, counting the sejjarate rounded summits 
' Proceedings Boston soc. nat. hist., vol. 1.3, 1870, p. 196-20-1. 
'^ Ibid., vol. 19, 1876, p. 58; vol.20, 1879, p. 217. See also The Ice Age in North 
America, 1889, chapter 11. 
3 Proceedings Boston soc. nat. hist., vol. 19, 1876, p. 63-G7. 
" Ibid., vol. 22, 1882, p. 34, 40-42. See also Amer. journ. sci., ser. 3, vol. 28, Dec, 
1884, p. 407-416. 
=> Proceedings Boston soc. nat. hist., vol. 25, 1890, p. 115-140. 
6 Ibid., vol. 20, 1879, p. 220-234; vol.24. 1888, p. 127-141 ; and vol. 24, 1889, p. 228- 
242. In the last of these papers, sections of the drumlins named Third and Fourth 
Clift's in Scituate, Mass., of drumlins forming islands in Boston Harbor, and of Cen- 
tral Hill in Somcrville, are described ; and many other papers relating to drumlins 
elsewhere in this country and in Europe are cited. 
