222 THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY. 



The Agassiz glacier is formed by the union of many high- 

 grade ice -streams on the eastern and northern slopes of the St. 

 Elias range, and on the southern face of the equally precipitous 

 Augusta range. All of these tributaries have been seen and are 

 indicated in a rough way on the accompanying map. 



Seward glacier is the principal feeder of the Malaspina ice 

 sheet. Its most distant tributaries have their sources far to the 

 north of the Augusta range, in the general neve field covering 

 the main mountain mass. Scores, if not hundreds, of secondary 

 glaciers unite to form the trunk stream which is fully three miles 

 broad where best defined, and probably not less than sixty or 

 seventy -five miles long. 



Besides the great glaciers enumerated above there are several 

 smaller ice -streams of the same type, such as the Marvine, 

 Hitchcock, Lucia, etc., each of which is eight or ten miles in 

 length and flows through a deep well-defined valley. Between 

 these various trunk streams there are scores of high-grade 

 glaciers that originate in deep cirques in the southern face of 

 the mountains or in some instances, on the rugged slopes them- 

 selves where there are no depressions, and descend to and merge 

 with the vast plateau of ice skirting the ocean. 



Before giving special attention to the Malaspina glacier it 

 may be well to glance at a few other geographical conditions 

 which influence its existence. 



The climate of southern Alaska adjacent to the coast is mild 

 and uniform. The summers are cool with much fog and rain ;: 

 the winters are not severe, but clear days are rare and snow falls 

 to the depth of several feet. Among the neighboring mountains 

 the snow-fall is excessive and occurs during every month of 

 the year. In the neve region near Mt. St. Elias at an elevation 

 of about 5,000 ft. it is not uncommon to see strata of compact 

 snow without a parting, fifty feet thick exposed in the walls of 

 crevasses. The mean annual temperature on the coast is 

 thought to be about 40-45 deg. F., but this estimate is 

 based on observation at a very limited number of stations. 

 The humidity is excessive, and the mean annual rain -fall 



