34 



ALASKA GLACIERS 



dimensions raised questions as to the mode of calving. 

 Reid, from studies of the Muir, inferred that waste along 

 the ice front was chiefly from melting by sea water; and 

 this melting, in combination with the forward flow of the 

 ice, produced an overhang, resulting in the breaking away 

 of the upper portion of the glacier by its own weight. 

 Such observations as I was able to make at various ice 

 cliffs were in full accord with his view, and the great 

 bergs of Reid Inlet may perhaps have been formed in that 

 way; but their size led me to wonder whether another 

 process might not be involved. Many of the immense 

 bergs of the Antarctic Ocean are tabular in form, and it is 

 believed that they have the full thickness of the parent 

 glaciers, which were protruded into the sea until actually 

 floating upon its surface before the separation took place. 



In order that the Grand 

 Pacific or the Johns Hop- 

 kins should produce 

 bergs of this type, it 

 would be necessary that 

 the depth of the fiord in 

 front of the ice cliff 

 should be not less than 

 seven-eighths the thick- 

 ness of the glacier. 



Hugh Miller Inlet. 

 Hugh Miller Inlet oc- 

 cupies an irregular re- 

 cess among the hills and 

 mountains on the south- 

 west side of Glacier Bay. 

 Rocky islands of moder- 

 ate elevation half block its entrance and interrupt its sur- 

 face. Charpentier Glacier reaches it from the south, ter- 

 minating in a low ice cliff about seven-eighths of a mile 



FIG. 17. MAP OF HUGH MILLER INLET. 



Showing positions of the ice front in different 

 years. Land areas are ruled. 



