The right
lateral moraine was disturbed by a large tributary glacier that occupied
the basin of Cascade Creek, causing considerable complication in its
structure. The left is simple in form for several miles of its length,
or to the point where a tributary came in from the southeast. But both
are greatly obscured by the forests and underbrush growing upon them,
and by the denuding action of rains and melting snows, etc. It is,
therefore, the less to be wondered at that these moraines, made up of
material derived from the distant fountain-mountains, and from the
Valley itself, were not sooner recognized.
The ancient glacier systems of the Tuolumne, San Joaquin, Kern, and
Kings River Basins were developed on a still grander scale and are so
replete with interest that the most sketchy outline descriptions of
each, with the works they have accomplished would fill many a volume.
Therefore I can do but little more than invite everybody who is free
to go and see for himself.
The action of flowing ice, whether in the form of river-like glaciers or
broad mantles, especially the part it played in sculpturing the earth,
is as yet but little understood. Water rivers work openly where people
dwell, and so does the rain, and the sea, thundering on all the shores
of the world; and the universal ocean of air, though invisible, speaks
aloud in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working and its
power.
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