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Updated: May 18, 2025
In North America the glaciation was even more extensive. About four million square miles of the present temperate zone were buried under ice and snow. From Greenland, Labrador, and the higher Canadian mountains the glaciers poured south, until, in the east, the mass of ice penetrated as far as the valley of the Mississippi.
The near-by peaks and ridges stood out with dazzling distinction, the glaciation, the drainage, the relation of each part to the others all revealed.
But the glacier seems to have stopped at the outlet of the great valley; it did not travel beyond the gigantic hall it had helped to excavate. The valley of the Merced from the mouth of Yosemite downward is an open valley strewn with huge angular granite rocks and shows no signs of glaciation whatever. The reason of this abruptness is quite beyond my ken.
We have already seen how much the soil was improved by glaciation in Wisconsin and Ohio. It was in the prairie States that this improvement reached a maximum. The soil there is not only fine grained and free from rocks, but it consists of particles brought from widely different sources and is therefore full of all kinds of plant foods.
At the head of the lake there is a perpendicular cliff over which the river precipitates itself, forming a very pretty cascade of 100 feet or more. On ascending the canyon above the head of the lake, for several miles, I found, everywhere, over the lip of the precipice, over the whole floor of the canyon, and up the sides 1000 feet or more, the most perfect glaciation.
Here we enter a world of controversy, but a few suggestions at least may be gathered from the large literature of the subject, which dispel much of the mystery of the Great Ice-Age. It was at one time customary to look out beyond the earth itself for the ultimate causes of this glaciation.
This scenery is young and its beauty will pass in a short time as geology counts the years, for in natural scenery as in human life it is youth that makes beauty. The canyons, waterfalls, and geysers of the cordillera share their youth with the lakes, waterfalls, and rapids due to recent glaciation in the east.
This last stage of glaciation may have coincided with that of the parallel roads of Glen Roy, spoken of in the last chapter. In Wales it was certainly preceded by submergence, and the rocks had been exposed to glacial polishing and friction before they sank.
"People who stick at home, and are patient, and put up with things, they're doomed. But look at the fellas that come out o' starvin' attics and stinkin' pigsties to America. They live like lords, and they look at life like men." Mac was saying a great deal about the Ice Age and the first and second periods of glaciation, but nobody could hear what. "Prince Nicholas? Well, I should smile.
The Atlantic coastal plain is by no means the only part of the United States where the fertility of the soil is the dominant fact in the life of the people. Because of their rich soil the prairies which extend from western Ohio to the Missouri River and northward into Canada are fast becoming the most steadily prosperous part of America. They owe their surpassing richness largely to glaciation.
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