Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
An interesting illustration of this principle is to be observed in the
continuous valley of the Alleghany and Ohio Rivers. The trough of this
valley was reached by the continental glacier at only a few points,
the ice barely touching it at Salamanca, N. Y., Franklin, Pa., and
Cincinnati, Ohio. But throughout its whole length the ice-front was
approximately parallel to the valley, and occupied the head-waters of
nearly all its tributaries. Now, wherever tributaries which could be fed
by glacial floods, enter the trough of the main stream, they brought down
an excessive amount of gravel, and greatly increased the size of the
terrace in the trough itself, and from the mouth of each such tributary
to that of the next one below there is a gradual decrease in the height
of the terrace and in the coarseness of the material.
This law is illustrated with special clearness in Pennsylvania between
Franklin and Beaver. Franklin is upon the Alleghany River, at the last
point where it was reached directly by the ice. Below this point no
tributary reaches it from the glaciated region, and none such reaches the
Ohio after its junction with the Alleghany until we come to the mouth of
Beaver Creek, about twenty-five miles below Pittsburg.
But at this point the Ohio is joined by a line of drainage which emerges
from the glaciated area only ten or twelve miles to the north, and whose
branches occupy an exceptionally large glaciated area. Accordingly, there
is at Beaver a remarkable increase in the size of the glacial terrace
on the Ohio. In the angle down-stream between the Beaver and the Ohio
there is an enormous accumulation of granitic pebbles, many of them
almost large enough to be called boulders, forming the delta terrace,
upon which the city is built and rising to a height of 135 feet above
the low-water mark in the Ohio. In striking confirmation of our theory,
also, the terrace in the Ohio Valley upon the upper side of Beaver Creek
is composed of fine material, largely derived from local rocks and
containing but few granitic pebbles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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