The Mountaineer 45 
diverging primary glaciers. While this classification admirably 
fits the conditions on the east half of Mount Rainier, it is 
scarcely applicable to the west half. Indeed all the large 
elaciers on the west half, with the exception of one, originate 
in amphitheatres or “cirques” situated some 4,000 feet below 
the summit. In point of magnitude, however, they are quite 
on a par with the summit born glaciers, and to call them 
“secondary” or “interglaciers’ would seem scarcely appro- 
priate. A careful analysis, moreover, shows that the great 
Carbon Glacier itself—the second largest ice stream on. Mount 
Rainier—is really a eirque-born glacier of the same type as 
the other cirque glaciers on the west flank. Surely no one 
would think of placing the Carbon Glacier in the secondary 
or interglacier class. 
In the following, therefore, the distinction between primary 
and secondary glaciers, as drawn by Russell will be dropped. 
At the same time, the term “interglacier” will be retained as 
most apt for the designation of those intermediate ice bodies 
of small extent that are situated on the “wedges” between the 
larger glaciers. 
Van Trump Glacier. Beginning immediately west of the 
Nisqually Glacier, the last ice stream on the southeast side of 
the mountain described by Russell, we find a huge “wedge” 
that tapers upward in a sharp point. That point, which has 
an altitude of 13,000 feet, is a remnant of the great crater rim 
produced by the explosion that removed the original top of 
the voleano. Immediately below the point is a small hollow in 
which névé has accumulated for ages. The effect has been to 
enlarge the hollow until the ridges separating it from the 
great glaciers to the right and left are now reduced to slender 
“arrétes” or “cleavers” as they are locally quite aptly called. 
The process illustrated by this tiny interglacier has been 
repeated in a number of places on the great wedge. Every 
hollow in its irregular surface has been occupied by a small 
névé mass, and through the peripheral sapping action that 
invariably takes place around such ice bodies, these hollows 
have been enlarged, until now they are separated from each 
other only by narrow rock walls or cleavers. Thus the wedge 
has the appearance of carrying a number of ice-filled com- 
partments with intermediate rock partitions. In some in- 
stances, even, these partitions have been partly destroyed 
