42 The Mountaineer 
THE UNDESCRIBED GLACIERS OF MOUNT 
RAINIER ©) 
KF. E. Matrrues 
In the Rainier number of this magazine, which appeared 
in 1909, Alida J. Bigelow gave an able synopsis of the late Prof. 
Israel C. Russell’s report to the U. S. Geological Survey on the 
olaciers of Mount Rainier (**). As she pointed out, that report 
does not cover the entire series of glaciers of the great voleano, 
the Kautz, Wilson, Tahoma, Puyallup, and Edmunds Glaciers 
not being described in it. The fact is that Prof. Russell in the 
short time at his command, was unable to completely encircle 
the mountain. Its west and southwest flanks as a consequence 
remained unknown to him. 
The topographic surveys which the U. 8. Geological Survey 
has lately been carrying on in the Mount Rainier National Park 
fortunately embrace the very portion of the mountain which 
Russell did not see, and thus there is now at hand a considerable 
body of data on the glaciers that have hitherto remained unde- 
scribed. 
The brief descriptions that here follow hardly dare aspire 
to complement Russell’s classic studies; they are offered merely 
in a preliminary way, in the hope that some day they may be 
superseded by more thoroughgoing and detailed discussions. 
In the meanwhile, however, they may prove of interest not 
simply because they fill a gap long vacant, but because they 
also seem to indicate the need of a revision of our general 
conception of the glacier system of Mount Rainier, 
That system, which was first outlined by Russell, com- 
prises glaciers of two classes: primary and secondary; the 
primary glaciers being those having their sources on the summit 
of the mountain, the secondary glaciers (also termed inter- 
glaciers) being those originating well down on its flanks, as 
a rule in the hollows of the triangular tracts that separate the 
Syed? se with permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological 
one 
(*2) The Glaciers of Mount Rainier, 18th Ann. Rept., U. S. Geological 
Survey, Part II, pp. 349-415. 
