NO. II THE FRESHFIELD GLACIER — PALMER II 



the extreme right. Apparently the tongue does not prockice a terminal 

 ice arch or cavern. 



The vertical shrinkage of the three mile tongue has been enormous, 

 according to the indications of the most recent lateral moraines. In 

 the lower portions of the valley these moraines rise more than loo 

 feet above the ice. There is no terminal moraine, properly speaking. 

 The tongue, as well as the upper plateau of the glacier, is singularly 

 free from superficial moraines. The medial moraines of the trunk 

 mingle with the northwesterly lateral and do not extend within a mile 

 of the forefoot. 



4. GENERAL FEATURES OF THE GLACIER 



The main reservoir or collecting area of the glacier is a broad, 

 fan-shaped basin with a flat floor that occupies a distorted synclinal 

 fold on the axis of the main range of the Rockies. The dissipator 

 tongue discharges at right angles in the position of the handle of the 

 fan. The dip and direction of the northeasterly limb of the syncline 

 are remarkably constant, so that the ice flows along a nearly straight 

 line on this side. The inner slopes of the basin here are practically 

 snowless, affording little, if any, nourishment to the trunk stream. 

 The southwesterly limb is a loftier and more abrupt folding, with 

 a greater shattering of the strata and a greater irregularity of sculp- 

 ture. Here are the culminating summits of the group, and from them 

 descend in broken ice falls many smaller tributary glaciers. 



The trunk glacier takes its source on the inner slopes of the 

 southerly wall of the basin, a ridge 9,500-10,000 feet high, stretching 

 for six miles between Mts. Barnard and Low. Here, broad, un- 

 broken, gently tilted inclines afford ideal conditions for glacier alimen- 

 tation. In the first three mi'es the snow fields descend to 8,000 feet, 

 where, as nearly as may be judged, the snow-line occurs. The next 

 three miles are a wide icy plain, flat and level to the eye, but really 

 descending a thousand feet, designated on the map the " Freshfield 

 Icefield ^ " (pi. 4, fig. 2, and pi. 5, figs, i and 2) . Hereabouts the medial 

 moraines, so prominent half-way down the tongue, begin to appear 

 along the westerly side. On the diagram, figure 3, they have 



^ The writer deprecates the use of " icefield " as commonly employed in con- 

 nection with valley glaciers. It tends to obscure the fact that the " icefield " 

 is only a portion of an advancing body of ice. Emphasis needs to be laid on 

 the fact that a glacier is a distinct entity, with a definite locality of origin and 

 a definite place of termination, between which the ice mass moves in an 

 orderly progression. We do not so easily or so harmfully call the slack water 

 of a river, " lake." 



