PREFACE. 



The five glaciers selected for investigation are located in Alberta and 

 British Columbia, along the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. They repre- 

 sent the g^eat snow-ice masses which accumulate, season after season, upon the 

 higher slopes and within the amphitheaters of the Selkirks and Canadian Rockies, 

 the slow downward movements of which prevent indefinite accumulation and 

 bring these great ice bodies to a level where complete melting may occur and 

 the waters again be put into circulation. The observations here described 

 were begun by the writer in the summer of 1902 and continued through the 

 seasons of 1903, 1904, and 1905; the entire field season of 1904 being devoted 

 to the surveys and more detailed studies.' Camps were established in the 

 immediate vicinity of the glaciers selected and they were kept under almost 

 continuous observation during the hours of daylight. Beginning with the nose 

 of each glacier, surveys around either side to the nev6 field were made with 

 plane-table, transit, or compass; the measiirements being with a steel tape. 

 It was found impracticable and unnecessary to traverse the neve areas and 

 those portions mapped were drawn from field observations and original photo- 

 graphs together with maps and illustrations from the Canadian Topographic 

 Survey, and other sources. The writer was ably assisted by Mr. DeForrest 

 Ross and Mr. Frederick Larmour, to whom he desires to make grateful acknowl- 

 edgment for intelligent and faithtul service, rendered often under trying cir- 

 cumstances. During the latter part of the season of 1905 very efficient assistance 

 was rendered by Messrs. E. W. Moseley and O. K. Todd. 



Being the most accessible glaciers upon the American continent it was 

 desired to render available as complete a description as time and facilities 

 would permit and to ascertain to what extent the known glacial features of 

 other portions of the world are reproduced in these American representatives. 

 It was hoped that a study of the same features, produced under somewhat 

 different conditions, might shed additional light upon theii" method of formation 

 and upon some of the unsettled problems of Pleistocene geology. A dispro- 

 portionate amount of time was devoted to the Victoria Glacier, at the head of 

 the superbly beautiful Lake Louise Valley, since this glacier is geologically the 

 most interesting and may well be taken as a type by students of glaciolog)-. 

 A delightful camp site lies under the lee of the outer massive block moraine and 

 a still more picturesque one farther up, on a low shoulder of Mt. Whyte, over- 



'A preliminary report upon the expedition appeared in May, 1905, in the " Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collections," vol. 47, Quarterly Issue, pp. 453 to 496. 



