124 HOBBS— CHARACTERISTICS OF THE [April 22, 



has been noted for the great Karajak glacier, of which a relatively 

 flat front section may be assumed to be the surface of a floating 

 portion"* (see Fig. 40). To this interesting example of a floating 

 glacier tongue in connection with the inland-ice of the northern 

 hemisphere, we may recall the probably floating front of the Turner 



„,...—.""■"'---— "^^ 



wi0iBlHffiMEI51 



Kilometers. 



Fig. 40. Sections from the inland-ice through the Great and Little 

 Karajak tongues to the Karajak fjord (after von Drygalski). 



glacier, a dendritic glacier of the tide-water type in Alaska. For 

 its type this example is apparently unique."' 



Manner of Birth of Bergs from Studies in Alaska. — The birth 

 of bergs from the parent glacier has been often described by travel- 

 lers and the superlatives of the language have been drawn upon to 

 express the grandeur and beauty of the observed phenomena. 

 Simple as the process may appear to the casual tourist who makes 

 the usual summer excursion to Alaska, it is not free from serious 

 difficulties, and has given rise to conflicting views among special- 

 ists. The water in front of the ice cliff is generally so muddy, and 

 the danger of approaching the ice front so great, that exact data are 

 necessarily difficult to obtain. The smaller bergs composed of 

 white ice, which are seen to fall into the water from the cliffs at 

 almost all hours, offer no difficulties of explanation, but they are 

 likewise without great significance as concerns the manner of for- 

 mation of those great floating masses of ice which are carried far 



"* E. von Drygalski, " Gronland-Expedition," Vol. i, pi. 43. See also 

 R. D. Salisbury, The Greenland Expedition of 1895. Jour. Geol., vol. 3, 1895, 

 p. 88s. 



"=^R. S. Tarr, and B. S. Butler, "The Yakutat Bay Region, Alaska, 

 Physiography and Glacial Geology," Prof. Pap. No. 64, U. S. Geol. Sur., 

 1909, pp. 39-40, pi. lo-a. 



