Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
Across Pennsylvania the glacial boundary passes through Northampton,
Monroe, Luzerne, Columbia, Sullivan, Lycoming, Tioga, and Potter
Counties, where it enters the State of New York, running still in a
northwest direction through Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties to the
vicinity of Salamanca. Here it turns to the south nearly at a right
angle, running southwestward to Chautauqua County and re-entering
Pennsylvania in Warren County, and thence passing onward in the same
general direction through Crawford, Venango, Mercer, Butler, and Lawrence
Counties to the Ohio line in Columbiana County, about ten miles north of
the Ohio River.
The occurrence of a well-defined terminal moraine to mark the glacial
boundary eastward from Pennsylvania led Professor Lewis and myself, who
made the survey of that State in 1880, to be rather too sanguine in
our expectations of finding an equally well-marked moraine everywhere
along the southern margin of the glaciated area; still, the results are
even more interesting than would have been the exact fulfilment of our
expectations, since they more fully revealed to us the great complexity
of effect which is capable of being brought about by ice-action. Before
proceeding farther with the details, therefore, it will be profitable
at this point to pause in the narrative and briefly record a few
generalisations that have forced themselves into prominence during the
years in which field-work has been in progress.
Previous to our explorations in Pennsylvania it had been thought that the
indications of ice-action would extend much farther south in the valleys
than on the mountains, and this indeed would have been the case if the
glaciers in northern Pennsylvania had been of local origin; but our
experience very soon demonstrated that the great gathering-place of the
snows which produced the glacial movement in northern Pennsylvania could
not have been local, but that over the northern part of that State there
was distinct evidence of a continental movement of ice whose centre was
far beyond the Alleghanies.
For example, we found that the evidences of direct glacial action
extended farther south upon the hills and plateaus than they did in the
narrow valleys, while everywhere on the very southern border of glacial
indications we found boulders that had been brought from the granitic
region of northern New York or central Canada. In eastern Pennsylvania
we found indeed a terminal moraine more or less distinctly marking the
southern border over the highlands. This was more specially true in
Northampton and Monroe Counties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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