MALASPINA GLACIER. 239 



large for the waters to move. The finer material has been 

 washed away, however, and a slight recession in the face of the 

 ice bluff has resulted. The largest stream draining the glacier is 

 the Yahtse. This river, as already stated, rises in two principal 

 branches at the base of the Chaix hills, and flowing through a 

 tunnel some six or eight miles long, emerges at the border of 

 the glacier as a swift brown flood fully one hundred feet across 

 and fifteen or twenty feet deep. The stream, after its subglacial 

 course, spreads out into many branches, and is building up an 

 alluvial fan which has invaded and buried several hundred acres 

 of forest. 



In traversing the coast from the Yahtse to Yakutat bay, we 

 crossed a large number of streams which drain the ice fields of 

 the north, some of which were large enough to be classed as 

 rivers. When the streams on flowing away from the glacier are 

 large they divide into many branches, as do the Yahtse and 

 Fountain, and enter the sea by several mouths. When the 

 streams are small, however, they usually unite to form large 

 rivers before entering the ocean. The Yahtse and Fountain, as 

 we have seen, are examples of the first, while Manby and Yahna 

 streams are examples of the second class. Manby stream rises in 

 hundreds of small springs along the margin of the glacier 

 which flow across a desolate torrent -swept area and unite just 

 before reaching the ocean into one broad, swift flood of muddy 

 water much too deep for one to wade. 



On the border of the glacier facing Yakutat Bay, however, 

 the drainage is different. The flow of the ice is there eastward, 

 although the margin is probably stagnant, and instead of forming 

 a bold, continuous escarpment, ends irregularly and with a low 

 frontal slope. The principal streams on the eastern margin in 

 1 89 1 were the Osar, Kame and Kwik. Each of these issues 

 from a tunnel and flows for some distance between walls of ice. 

 Of the three streams mentioned the most interesting is the 

 Kame, which issues as a swift brown flood partially choked with 

 broken ice, from the mouth of a tunnel and flows for half a mile 

 in an open cut between precipitous walls of dirty ice 80 to lOO 



