26o HARRY FIELDING REID 



support on the east; it will broaden out, and will offer a longer line 

 for breakage. If, on the other hand, there should be any material 

 retreat, the ice-front would again become longer, resulting in still 

 more rapid retreat, until, perhaps, the glacier withdraws above tide- 

 level. 



There are eight glaciers of considerable size within easy reach 

 of Skagway. These glaciers have been under observation by Mr. 

 Andrews, who expects to continue to observe them. They are all 

 retreating rapidly. Denver Glacier melted back 40 feet in two 

 months in the summer of 1903. The "S" Glacier and the Upper 

 Glacier have been retreating at the rate of 30 or 40 feet a year since 

 1898 (Andrews). 



The Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau retreated at the rate of 

 40 or 50 feet annually between 1892 and 1901. Immediately bor- 

 dering its sides and end the ground is free of vegetation, but the 

 shrubs and trees gradually increase in extent and size as we go far- 

 ther from the glacier, either down its valley or up the mountain 

 side. This increase in the age of the trees indicates the rate at 

 which the glacier has retreated. It is very remarkable how rapidly 

 trees have grown in this region, attaining a thickness of nine inches 

 in twenty-five years and of nearly two feet in one hundred years' 

 Mr. Fernow has also noted the remarkably rapid growth of trees at 

 the entrance of Glacier Bay, where trees only forty or fifty years 

 old were 36 inches in diameter and 80 feet high.* 



Throughout Oregon and Washington the last three years have 

 been marked by excessive precipitations, and the snowfall of last 

 year seemed to be the greatest of the three; but there is no evidence 

 that this has yet resulted in the advance of the glaciers. Mount 

 Baker is an interesting mountain, but it has received very little 

 attention. It was ascended last summer by Mr. C. E. Rusk, who 

 writes me that there are about ten glaciers on the mountain. Two 

 of these, which he had the opportunity to examine, showed signs 

 of marked retreat in recent years. 



The Eliot Glacier on Mount Hood has retreated slightly since 



^ Marsden Manson, " Forest Advance over Glaciated Areas in Alaska and 

 British Columbia," Forestry Quarterly, Vol. I (1903), pp. 94-96. 



^ See Harriman Expedition, Vol. II, pp. 249-52. 



