48 ALASKA GLACIERS 



more readily than the rocks about Glacier Bay. For this 

 reason the finer details of ice sculpture are preserved only 

 on surfaces from which the glaciers have somewhat re- 

 cently retreated. It is probably because of the rapid 

 weathering that vegetation occupies ice-freed surfaces 

 rather quickly, but this remark applies only to herba- 

 ceous plants and to willows and alders having the habit 

 of bushes. The spruces, whose dense forests cover the 

 detrital foreland east of the bay and climb the seaward 

 slope of the adjacent mountain, have accomplished little 

 toward the invasion of the most freshly glaciated faces of 

 the same mountain which are turned toward Yakutat Bay 

 and Russell Fiord. 



So far as known by direct observation, the recent glacial 

 history is one of waning and retreat. From a careful 

 compilation of early records, made by Russell, it appears 

 that Malaspina in 1792 and Vancouver in 1794, attempting 

 to penetrate Disenchantment Bay in boats, found a glacier 

 front at Haenke Island. This was essentially the face of 

 Hubbard Glacier, to which the Turner was then trib- 

 utary. Completely filling the head of Disenchantment 

 Bay, it acted as a dam separating Russell Fiord from 

 Yakutat Bay, and the fiord was then occupied by a lake. 

 The discharge of the lake must have been southward over 

 the gravel lowland, and during its existence the wash of 

 its waves produced beaches which are still to be seen as 

 terraces about the southern part of the fiord. Russell 

 estimates their height above tide- water at 150 feet. 



From 1792 to 1899 the face of Hubbard Glacier re- 

 treated about five miles, but there is no reason to suppose 

 that its position in the days of Malaspina represented a 

 maximum. Haenke Island, which was not wholly cov- 

 ered by the ice at the time of Malaspina's visit, neverthe- 

 less preserves glacial striation over the whole of its crest, 

 and in places even polish; and this could hardly be the 



