Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1893-12-22
HOW 1T WAS FORMED
SOME INTERESTING GEOLOGICAL
OBSERVATIONS


simply a FIssure, as Explained
by Fred &. Piummcr.
Did you ever dig we'll? Have you
dug one near Tacoma? Did you notice
carefully the formations Of gravel
sand, clay and hard-pan that it was
! necessary TO pick or blast before the
coveted water could be reached? II
you did, you know that the Puget
Sound country is peculiar. Perhaps
your neighbor sunk a we'll, well only
half as deep as yours and yet cut oil
your supply. Perhaps he was not sat
isfied with the flow and after going
deeper both wells failed; or possibly
after reaching depth of only 10 or Ii
feet, the water flowed so fast that il
drove the diggers out.
If you have travelled much about the
Puget Sound valley you have noticed
that all the lands adjoining the Sound
are of the same general formation
You know that the Sound has beach
line of nearly 1000 miles, and that its
depth is great and shores high. You
have seen the various strata exposed
at the bluffs or in the railroad cuts and
barrow pits, and perhaps have tried to
study out how they were placed in
such regular irregularity. If you have
asked miner or an assayer, or per-
haps wandering geologist about it.
he has possibly said: "Oh, it is gla-
cial, of course" and there it ended, for
glacial theories cover o multitude OF
problems. But suppose that we, who
live right here, study for ourselves and
interpret independently the story ma
ture has to tell.
There are many glaciers in Washing
ton-prohably forty-great rivers Of
ice and snow, which form upon the
mountain slopes and flow into the
valleys, eroding great beds and carry
ing great masses of rock down to the
streams. Upon careful examination
we find that the rocks as they are
brought down are Clipped and
scratched, and worn, and finally
dumped at the side or lower end Of
the glacier and make literal or termi-
nal moraines. These moraines are
therefore great piles of rocks and
boulders piled one upon another, with
spaces between which long after may
be filled with sand or mud. If we ex.
anime the bed of the valley below the
glacier we may find several terminal
moraines, some recent near the gla-
cier, and others more distant covered
with q growth OF brush or timber, but
they are easy to recognize after we
have carefully studied how the glaciers
make them. Perhaps the glacier may
be melting fast and receding up the
valley, in which case it will trail its
terminal moraine-spreading it out
on the valley, and when decade of
relatively cold weather comes, it may
pillow its way into the deposit with tre-
mendous power and form a veritable
dam across the valley. The stream
that issues from under the glacier
flows on a steep grade and permits
nothing TO stay in its valley but heavy
boulders. The stream is very muddy
and probably contains every element,
but ita speed is so great that it makes
no large deposit until it reaches the
salt waters of the Sound, when it
spreads new layer upon the flats,
which, as their name denotes, are
nearly level. We must remember this
that at the upper end of the valley
near the glacier, it is all boulders and
gravel, while at the lower end solid
mud. By the wearing of the gravel
and the eroding of the glacier the
stream is continually bringing down
more material and forming the fats
further and further out into the Sound.
OF course there is place where the
gravel bed ends and the mud begins
Q change of grade, and is where the
valley widens and where the flats be.
gan to be made. and consequently
where the Sound used to extend to.
But we notice that all this is taking
place in the valleys and not on the
hills such as border the Sound. It is
evident that the Sound formations
were not made by this kind of glacier
at least.
But the glacialists have another
theory-that great continental sheets
of ice covered the land several thous-
and years ago, and that they were
instrumental in the depositing of this
great layer of gravel. East of the
Rocky mountains it would be called
" drift" and in it would be seen all
kinds and sizes of rocks, many of
them scratched or striated and laid
without order or stratification. Now
let US presume that great ice sheets
laid upon the west slope of the Cas-
cades and the east slope of the Coast
Range. What things would happen
that we can state with positive as
surance? The direction of their flow
would certainly be from the high
lands toward the relatively low lands.
They would bring down rocks from all
the earlier formations which they
crossed, hard and soft, large and
small, coal, fossils and petri6cations'
Great terminal moraines would be
found parallel with the axes of the
ranges. A great flood of water from
their melting would rush down the
valley cutting channel for itself and
carrying along with it all the silt and
mud, and would deposit it out in the
ocean just as the streams from the
present glaciers do, for the laws OF ma
ture have not changed since the