94 Kansas Academy of Science. 



disintegration boulders that the solid rock of the ridge was nowhere 

 visible; and thence we descended four or five hundred feet to Hallett's 

 glacier. The ridge has an elevation of 13,400 feet above sea level, and 

 gave a fine view of the glacier lying in itfe cirque below, with its terminal 

 moraine immediately below it. On descending to the moraine we found 

 that it consisted of great, angular bowlders forming a terminal moraine 

 in front of the ice, rising, like so many others in the Estes Park region, 

 five hundred feet above the creek erosion valley below. 



Apparently Hallett's glacier has never left the cirque which it has 

 excavated on the east side of the ridge, extending north from Hague's 

 peak, but has continuously shoved out disintegration bowlders, which it 

 has plucked from the ridge behind it, and has thus backed into the ridge. 

 Sometime it will back through where gaps are already visible, and the 

 glacier will cease to exist. 



On crossing the ridge connecting Mummy mountain with Hague's 

 peak, the first view of Hallett's glacier was very fine, almost awe-in- 

 spiring. The glacier was glistening white from newly fallen snow, and, 

 seen from a height of five hundred feet in its setting of black rock on all 

 sides, one felt like sitting down and studying it as he would an oil 

 painting. 



Hallett's glacier is properly a neve, and, while it is still alive and has 

 a crevasse where the neve drops from a higher to a lower level, the 

 glacier has done little work beyond excavating its cirque and pushing out 

 its great terminal moraine of blocks of gneiss. 



The winter preceding our visit had been very stormy, and the cirque 

 was unusually full of snow at the time of our visit in August, so we had 

 no opportunity to visit the crevasse and get a view of the interior of the 

 neve. The concave surface of the neve is evenly ribbed from back to 

 front. No attempt was made to find the cause of the ribbing, but no 

 other bodies of snow had the ribbed surface except one high up on 

 Mount Fairchild, and it was therefore surmised that the ridges were pro- 

 duced by the motion of the glacier. 



The mountains of the Estes Park region consist chiefly of gneiss and 

 mica schist. Even the so-called Pillars of Hercules in Thompson canyon 

 are but the edges of layers of fine-textured mica schist. The bowlders of 

 all the moraines have not been moved more than fifteen miles, most of 

 them not more than five or six. They are, therefore, still angular, like 

 the disintegration bowlders of Hague's peak, and have not been smoothed 

 by sliding. It may be of interest to the mineralogist to learn that many 

 of the bowlders on the slopes of the ridge connecting Hague's peak 

 and Mummy mountain contain twin crystals of feldspar. 



Several vacations would be required for a complete study of all these 

 morainic ridges in the vicinity of Estes Park, but such studies would 

 take one into a region replete with gorges, snow fields and rugged 

 mountain peaks, and would fill the hearts of the fisherman, mountain 

 climber, teacher of physical geography, geologist and artist with the 

 deepest pleasure. 



