MOUNT RAINIER 



triangular spur, in which the bedding of the successive 

 flows of lava, forming the original mountain crust, is 

 very regular and conformable, may be roughly esti- 

 mated at somewhat over a mile. Of the thickness of 

 the ice of the glacier I have no data for making esti- 

 mates, though it may probably be reckoned in thou- 

 sands of feet. 



It has two principal medial moraines, which, where 

 crossed by us, formed little mountain ridges having 

 peaks nearly 100 feet high. The sources of these 

 moraines are cliffs on the steeper mountain slope, 

 which seem mere black specks in the great white field 

 above : between these are great cascades, and below 

 immense transverse crevasses, which we had no time 

 or means to visit. The surface water flows in rills 

 and brooks, on the lower portion of the glacier, and 

 moulins are of frequent occurrence. We visited one 

 double moulin where two brooks poured into two cir- 

 cular wells, each about ten feet in diameter, joined 

 together at the surface but separated below : we could 

 not approach near enough the edge to see the bottom of 

 either, but, as stones thrown in sent back no sound, 

 judged they must be very deep. 



This glacier forks near the foot of the steeper moun- 

 tain slope, and sends off a branch to the northward, 

 which forms a large stream flowing down to join the 

 main stream fifteen or twenty miles below. Looking 

 down on this from a high overhanging peak, we could 

 see, as it were, under our feet, a little lake of deep blue 

 water, about an eighth of a mile in diameter, standing 

 in the brown gravel-covered ice of the end of the 

 glacier. On the back of the rocky spur, which divides 

 these two glaciers, a secondary glacier has scooped out 

 a basin-shaped bed, and sends down an ice stream, 

 having all the characteristics of a true glacier, but its 

 ice disappears several miles above the mouths of the 

 large glaciers on either side. Were nothing known of 

 the movement of glaciers, an instance like this would 



140 



