106 I. C. Russell — Expedition to Mount St. Elias. 



stones resting on the slipi^ery slo^^e beneath. Fortunately, the 

 crevasses were mostly filled with stones fallen from the sides, so 

 that the danger from open fissures, which has usually to be 

 guarded against in glacial excursions, was obviated ; yet, as is 

 usually the case Avhen crevasses become filled with debris, the 

 melting of the adjacent surfaces had caused them to stand in 

 relief and form ridges of loose stones, which were exceedingly 

 troublesome to the traveler. 



Near the western side of the Lucia glacier, between Terrace 

 point and Floral pass, there is a huge rounded dome of sand- 

 stone rising boldly out of the ice. This corresponds to the " nun- 

 ataks " of the Greenland ice-fields, aiid was covered by ice when 

 the glaciation was more intense than at present. On the north- 

 ern side of the island the ice is forced high up on its flanks, and 

 is deeply covered with moraines ; but on the southwestern side 

 its base is low and skirted by a sand plain deposited in a valley 

 formerly occupied by a lake. The melting of the glacier has, in 

 fact, progressed so far that the dome of rock is free from ice on 

 its southern side, and is connected with the border of the valley 

 toward the west by the sand plain. This plain is composed of 

 gravel and sand deposited by streams which at times became 

 dammed lower down and expanded into a lake. Sunken areas 

 and holes over portions of the lake bottom show that it rests, in 

 j)art at least, upon a bed of ice. 



The most novel and interesting feature in the Lucia glacier is 

 a glacial river which bursts from beneath a high archway of ice 

 just at the eastern base of the nunatak mentioned above, and 

 flows for about a mile and a half through a channel excavated 

 in the ice, to then enter the mouth of another tunnel and become 

 lost to view. An illustration of this strange river and of the 

 mouth of the tunnel in the debris-covered ice into which it rolls, 

 reproduced from a photograph by a mechanical process, is given 

 on plate 14 (page 110), and another view of the mouth of the 

 same tunnel is presented in the succeeding plate. This is the 

 finest example of a glacial river that it has ever been my good 

 fortune to examine. 



The stream is swift, and its waters are brown and heavy with 

 sediment. Its breadth is about 150 feet. For the greater j^art 

 of its way, where open to sunlight, it flows between banks of ice 

 and over an icy floor. Fragments of its banks, and portions of 



