The present treatise is the outcome of special studies upon glacial phenomena begun in the summer of 1874, in the eastern part of Massachusetts, the results of which were published in a communication to the Boston Society of Natural History in December, 1876. These first studies pertained to the origin of the gravel-ridges described in this volume under the name of kames. Fortunately, in the preparation of that paper, I was favored with an interview with Mr. Clarence King, who then gave me the information referred to in the following pages, concerning the terminal moraine south of New England, which has been so fruitful of suggestion to other investigators as well as to myself. Since that time the subject has never been out of mind, and my summer months have all been devoted, under favorable conditions, to the collection of field notes regarding it, and so it has seemed to others, as well as to myself, appropriate that I should endeavor to bring the facts within the reach of the general public.
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