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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



triangular ice field, or interglacier, 

 named Pyramid Glacier. It covers a 

 fairly smooth, gently sloping platform 

 underlain by a heavy lava bed, and 

 breaking off at its lower edge in precipi- 

 tous, columnar clifTs. Into this platform 

 a profound but narrow box canyon has 

 been incised by an ice stream descending 

 from the summit neves east of Peak 

 Success. This is the Kautz Glacier, an 

 ice stream peculiar for its exceeding 

 slendemess. On the map it presents 

 almost a worm -like appearance, height- 

 ened perhaps by its strongly sinuous 

 course. In spite of its meager width, 



locality that the ice has been unable 

 to hew out a wider passage. Not its 

 entire volume, however, was squeezed 

 through the narrow portal; there is 

 abundant evidence showing that in 

 glacial times when the ice stream was 

 more voluminous it overrode the rock 

 buttresses on the west side of the gorge. 



VAN TRUMP GLACIER. 



The name of P. B. Van Trump, the 

 hardy pioneer climber of Mount Rainier, 

 has been attached to the interglacier 

 situated between the Kautz and the 

 Nisqually Glaciers. This ice body lies 



Photo by Geo. V. Caesar. 



Ice Cave at Lower End of Carbon Glacier from which Carbon River Issues. 



which averages about 1,000 feet, the ice 

 stream attains a length of almost 4 

 miles and descends to an altitude of 

 4,800 feet. This no doubt is to be 

 attributed in large measure to the 

 protecting influence of the box canyon. 



A singularly fascinating spectacle is 

 that which the moraine-covered lower 

 end of the glacier presents from the 

 height of Van Trump Park. A full 

 1,000 feet down one looks upon the ice 

 stream as it curves around a sharp bend 

 in its canyon. 



A short distance below the glacier's 

 terminus, the canyon contracts abruptly 

 to a gorge only 300 feet in width. So 

 resistant is the columnar basalt in this 



on the uneven surface of an extensive 

 wedge that tapers upward to a sharp 

 point — one of the remnants of the old 

 crater rim. A number of small ice 

 fields are distributed on this wedge, 

 each ensconced in a hollow inclosed 

 more or less completely by low ridges. 

 By gradually deploying each of these ice 

 bodies has enlarged its site, and thus the 

 dividing ridges have been converted 

 into slender rock walls or cleavers. In 

 many places they have even been com- 

 pletely consumed and the ice fields coal- 

 esce. The Van Trump Glacier is the 

 most extensive of these composite ice 

 fields. The rapid melting which it has 

 suffered in the last decades, however, has 



