382 HARRY FIELDING RE ID 



Mt. Rainier. — Professor I. C. Russell writes me: 



In company with Bailey Willis and George Otis Smith of the United 

 States Geological Survey, I visited Mount Rainier, Washington, and spent 

 two weeks, from July 15 to August i, in examining the glaciers on its 

 sides. 



The Willis, Carbon, Winthrop, Emmons, Nisqually, and Cowlitz glaciers 

 were visited. Each of these furnishes clear evidence of having recently 

 been lowered by melting, especially in the lower courses. The extremities 

 of the three first named were examined and in each case a recent and marked 

 recession was manifest. 



The extremity of Carbon glacier, as judged by Willis, has receded about 

 1 00 meters since his former visit in 1 88 1 . The extremity of the glacier at the 

 date mentioned was a vertical precipice of nearly clear ice, but now has a 

 slope of 55° to 60° and is debris covered. 



Willis glacier is divided at its terminus by a rugged boss of rock, for 

 which I suggest the name Division rock, the down-stream face of which is a 

 rugged precipice by estimate 120 or 150 meters high. I am informed by 

 Willis, who saw it from below, that in 1883 the glacier broke off not far 

 behmd the summit of this precipice and formed walls of ice descending on 

 each side of it. The ice did not cover the highest peak on Division rock at 

 the date mentioned, and there are about ten small spruce trees growing on 

 the apex. These trees are certainly more than fifteen years old. The 

 upstream side of the rock, below the trees, is strewn with stones and dirt and 

 has evidently been recently occupied by the glacier. At the time of my visit 

 the ice in the central part of the glacier had receded 175 meters from the 

 edges of the precipice. Fresh lateral moraines elevated from thirty to 

 forty meters above the level of the glacier in i8g6, and extending fully three 

 kilometers (two miles) above Division rock, agree approximately with the 

 1883 level of the ice as reported by Willis. 



Willis glacier now divides on reaching Division rock into two sharp- 

 pointed tongues of debris-covered ice which end with low frontal slopes 

 The extremities of these tongues are about abreast of the summit of Division 

 rock. Where the glacier divides a pyramidal monument of angular stones 

 about one and one-third meters high is built. This monument records the 

 limit of the ice at the place where it divides, on July 31, 1896. 



Up stream from Division rock there is another similar eminence which 

 might possibly be mistaken for it, if the glacier continues to recede. The 

 rocky knob referred to is now a part of the right or northern wall of the 

 glacier. 



Eight hundred and forty meters, as measured by pacing, above the monu- 

 ment described above, there is an ice-fall in the glacier 130 to 135 meters 

 hisrh. The descent of the surface of the srlacier from the base of the ice-fall 



