56 ALASKA GLACIERS 



and may have marked the position of original moraine 

 belts, and one of these happened to be cut across by a 

 glacial stream, so as to be exhibited in section. In the 

 photograph reproduced in plate vi the ice, which is here 

 rather dark from suffused dirt, is seen to constitute the 

 mass of the morainic ridge, being preserved from melt- 

 ing by a relatively thin layer of fine drift. 



Russell, who saw and named the glacier in 1891, did not 

 visit it, and merely records that it was non-tidal. His map 

 makes no claim to precision and can not be used in a com- 

 parative way to determine the history of change. Gan- 

 nett's map, pi. iv, and the various photographs here repro- 

 duced, make a record which will be available for future 

 comparison, but inference as to past changes can only be 

 based on circumstantial evidence. That the recent history 

 of the glacier has been one of recession can hardly be 

 doubted. Not only do the kettle-holes testify to the stag- 

 nation and burial of what was formerly its snout, but I 

 found remnant ice masses above the gravel plain on both 

 sides of the valley. These were protected from rapid 

 waste by gravels that were originally parts of lateral 

 moraines, but as water was constantly flowing from them 

 their survival could not be indefinitely prolonged, and 

 their origin can not have been remote. They were not 

 seen more than a half mile from the ice front, but they 

 lay considerably above the neighboring gravel plain, the 

 extreme height at the north being estimated at 300 feet, 

 and at the south somewhat greater. When the back of 

 the glacier reached to these heights its front probably 

 extended a mile farther down the valley. 



The walls of the valley are not clothed with vegetation,, 

 but a scattering growth of annual plants and a few dwarf 

 willows have found foot-hold. The gravel plain through 

 which the glacial streams meander, though seemingly 

 affording conditions of soil and moisture congenial to 



