54 The Mountaineer 
mass northward to the névé fields bordering the Willis Glacier. 
To the south, again, it contributes to the Edmunds Glacier. 
Perhaps the most interesting feature connected with it is the 
stream that issues from the main lobe. That stream, after 
cascading noisily down a steep amphitheater-like hollow, tun- 
nels under the front of the small north lobe of the Edmunds 
Glacier, reappearing farther down reinforced by the melting 
water from that ice body. 
In former times the interglacier attained much greater 
dimensions and coalesced with the Edmunds Glacier, just as 
the ice fields immediately north of it now form part of the 
Willis Glacier. It is to be hoped that a suitable name may soon 
be suggested for this beautiful interglacier, which in point of 
size is, next to the Paradise Glacier, the largest body of its 
class. 
Summary and Conclusion. In making a careful study of the 
glaciers here described one cannot but be impressed by the fact 
that the summit of the mountain is not the source of all the 
“main” glaciers, but that cirques at relatively low altitudes 
give birth to a large percentage of them. Thus, of the five 
main glaciers here described,.only two come from the summit 
and of these two, one, the Kautz Glacier is considerably inferior 
in volume to any of the cirque born glaciers. Of the entire set 
of eleven main glaciers of Mount Rainier, only six are summit 
born, to-wit, the Winthrop, Emmons, Ingraham-Cowlitz, Nis- 
qually, Kautz and Tahoma, and five are cirque born, to-wit, the 
Wilson, Puyallup, Edmunds, Willis and Carbon. 
The advantage of dropping the distinction between pri- 
mary and secondary glaciers, on a basis of origin, is thus mani- 
fest. The real reason for abandoning Russell’s system of 
primary and secondary ice streams, however, is of a more 
fundamental nature and requires further explanation. 
Underlying Russell’s system, evidently, is the idea that the 
summit regions because of their superior altitude constitute 
the chief gathering ground for snow, and that, therefore, they 
should normally feed the largest glaciers. The hollows in the 
interglacier tracts, on the other hand, because of their low 
altitude and relatively small capacity he held to be able to gen- 
erate glaciers of subordinate importance only. Russell's climbs 
across the Winthrop and Emmons Glaciers no doubt served to 
impress him greatly with the vastness of these two summit 
