48 STEPHEN R. CAPPS 



In the canyon of the Chisana, between the mouth of Chavolda 

 Creek and the north base of the mountains, the rock valley walls show 

 in many places one or more smooth, rounded benches, due to glacial 

 erosion. The benches are inconspicuous when near at hand, but are 

 plainly discernible from a distance. They can rarely be followed for 

 more than a mile or so, and it was impossible, in the short time 

 available, to correlate the benches in different parts of the canyon. 



WHITE VALLEY 



Russell Glacier. — ^The head of the White River is occupied by a 

 body of ice which was first crossed in 1891, by C. W. Hayes, and 

 was named Russell Glacier^ by him. The pass over this glacier he 

 named Skolai Pass, and from this fact the name Skolai Glacier is 

 commonly used in the region. The feeding-ground from which this 

 ice-field moved is located in the high mountains east and southeast 

 of Skolai Pass, and as these mountains have never been accurately 

 mapped, no data is available for determining the area and length of 

 the glacier. 



As stated above, all the valleys which supply ice to the main glacier 

 head to the east and south. The northernmost of these, at the head 

 of Moraine Creek, joins the main lobe near its terminus. The tribu- 

 tary valley divides, a short distance above its mouth, into two cirques 

 which head in the snow-capped mountains to the east. South of 

 Moraine Creek there are four important tributary glaciers, all of 

 which have their sources in the high, snow-capped, unexplored 

 mountains (Fig. 7). 



The main lobe of ice in the head of the -White Valley is between 

 6 and 7 miles long, and about 2^ miles wide, and most of the ice 

 moves in a northeast direction. A small crescentic lobe, however, 

 moves westward into the head of Skolai Creek. 



The surface of Russell Glacier is for the most part much crevassed 

 and difficult to cross. The lower two or three miles of ice are moraine- 

 covered, and have been melted into rugged surface shapes in which 

 the ice can be seen only where the slopes are too steep to hold the 

 moraine material. Numerous lakelets were seen to occupy basins in 

 the ice (Fig. 8). Above the moraine-covered portion of the glacier 



I Nat. Geog. Mag., Vol. IV, 1892, p. 152. 



