GLACIERS OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES AND SELKIRKS. H^ 



tributary to other ice streams at the time. Further we should expect to find 

 occasional rock slides of the same age as the moraines and cliff debris that did 

 not reach the back of a glacier. The latter material not being concentrated 

 would be inconspicuous. In 1905 there was but little time for a general examin- 

 tion of the region but visits were made to the Horseshoe and Geikie glaciers. 

 The fonner lies between the Wenkchemna and Victoria, with its main extent 

 of vertical cliff extending to the northeast, but with a considerable portion 

 extending from Hungabee to the Wastach Pass, with a westerly to northwesterly 

 trend. Opposite this portion of the glacier there is a deposit of very coarse 

 blocks, that were dropped upon the crest and outer slope of a still more ancient 

 moraine, consisting largely of a stony till. The number, however, is ver}- meager 

 compared with those in the Valley of Ten Peaks, and would call for no exceptional 

 explanation. A low ridge of coarse blocks occurs just inside, showing best about 

 the front of the nearly detached western portion of the glacier, which is correlated 

 with the inner of the bear-den moraines. In the case of the Geikie Glacier, lying 

 at the head of Fish Creek Valley and nourished from the southern portion of the 

 Illecillewaet neve (plate xxxiii) , no moraines of the type sought were found within 

 a distance of one and one-half miles of the nose. Although the cliffs are suffi- 

 ciently steep to have supplied the material their general trend is northeast-south- 

 west, i. e., in the direction of supposed earth movement, and they siiffered 

 relatively little destruction. From the eastern face of Mt. Burgess there has 

 been dropped a mass of coarse rock, which more strongly suggests the morainic 

 deposit seen in the valleys than that seen anywhere else outside the reach of 

 the glaciers. In many of the talus slopes there are many coarse and fine 

 blocks, which look to be of nearly the same age, instead of showing the 

 gradation that we might expect. In their work referred to upon page 4, 

 Collie and Stutfield describe a mass of rock debris in the valley of the 

 Athabasca (page 126) that may represent one of these ancient coarse 

 moraines or a modern one in process of forming. In referring to peaks 

 Woolley and Stutfield they say, "These two last mountains appeared to 

 have been conducting themselves in a most erratic manner in bygone ages. 

 A tremendotxs rock-fall had evidently taken place from their ugly bare lime- 

 stone cliff's; and the whole valley, nearly half a mile wide, was covered to a 

 depth of some hundreds of feet with boulders and debris. What had happened, 

 apparently, was this. The irnmense amount of rock that had fallen on the glacier 

 below Peak Stutfield had prevented the ice fi-om melting. Consequently the 

 glacier, filling up the valley to a depth of at least two hundred feet, had moved 

 bodily down; and its snout, a couple of hundred feet high, covered Avith blocks 

 of stone the size of small houses, was playing havoc with the pine-woods before 

 it and on either side. In our united experiences, extending over the Alps, the 

 Caucasus, the Himalaya, and other mountain ranges, we had never seen indica- 

 tions of a landslide on so colossal a scale." In a footnote they add, "The re- 

 mains of a similar landslide were afterwards noticed blocking the outlet to 

 Moraine Lake in Desolation Vallev." 



