The Working Christian

GLACIERS IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

It has been frequently said that there are no traces of glaciers in the Rocky Mountains, and this position has been recently reaffirmed by Dr. J. W. Foster, in the American Naturalist. But it is forcibly and, we think, conclusively combated by Mr. Richard Bliss, Jr., a member of last year's Harvard expedition to Colorado, who refers to several terminal moraines on the west side of the range, under Gray's Peak, and one on Clear Creek (east side), near Fall River. The recognition of terminal moraines is a matter in which young geologists may be deceived; and the case on Clear Creek must be somewhat obscure. We have passed the spot repeatedly without suspecting it. But on the other side of the range the conclusive evidence of glacial polishing and furrowing is not wanting. Mr. Bliss mentions the canon of the upper South Platte, near Montgomery, a small mining town in Park county, in which he found these indications unmistakable and abundant. Their absence on the other flank may be accounted for by the exceeding friability and ready decomposition under atmospheric exposure of the granites and syenites first encountered in entering the Rocky Mountains from the east.