Kame - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

KAME (a form of Scandinavian comb, hill), in physical geography, a short ridge or bunched mound of gravel or sand, "tumultuously stratified," occurring in connexion with glacial deposits, having been formed at the mouths of tunnels under the ice. When the ice-sheet melts, these features, formerly concealed by the glacier, are revealed. They are common in the glaciated portions of the lower Scottish valleys. By some authorities the term "kame," or specifically "serpentine kame," is taken as synonymous with "esker," which however is preferably to be applied to the long mound deposited within the ice-tunnel, not to the bunched mound at its mouth.