26 II. F. Rcid — Studies of Muir Glacier. 



cier, and is about a mile wide. Its surface bears a number of 

 shallow lakes ; and here and there deep ravines mark the posi- 

 tions of former watercourses. The western subglacial stream 

 has cut a gorge through this plateau, and exposed the buried 

 forest described by Professor Wright (see page 39). For three- 

 quarters of its length, the plateau ends on the water side in jire- 

 cipitous bluffs, below Avhich there is a narrow beach, only covered 

 by the highest tides. On the eastern side the bluffs only extend 

 for a half mile or so ; the upper surface of the deposit is not a 

 plateau, but slopes graduallj^ down to the bed of the glacial 

 stream at the foot of the mountains. This stream empties into 

 the inlet just below where the bluffs end. South of the stream 

 the deposits slope gradually up from the beach to a height of 

 about 400 feet against the mountain side.* 



The inlet is quite deep. Professor Wright reports a sounding 

 by Captain Plunter of 516 feet about 1,300 yards south of the 

 present position of the ice front. Captain Carroll last summer 

 (1890) found within a hundred yards of the ice-front a depth of 

 720 feet. This does not necessarily indicate that the inlet in- 

 creases in depth as we a]3proach the immediate neighborhood of 

 the ice, for the earlier sounding may not have been taken in the 

 deepest part of the channel. 



Muir Glacier. 

 General Features. 



Muir glacier occupies a depression in the mountains aliout 35 

 miles long and from 6 to 10 wide. It is fed by a great number 

 of tributaries, of which the first northern, the second northern, 

 and the northwestern are by far the largest. These again are 

 made up of many smaller glaciers. The general slope of the 

 surface, based on a barometric reading made between Tree 

 mountain and Granite canyon, is about 1° 15'. The appearance 

 of the glacier toward the northwest indicates that the slope there 

 is about the same. The total area drained by this system is 

 about 800 square miles ; the actual surface of the ice being about 

 350 square miles. The area draining into Muir inlet is about 



* For an excellent description of these deposits see " Notes on the Muir 

 glacier region" hy Mr H. P. Gushing in Am. GeoL, vol. viii, 1891, p]). 

 207-230, pi. iii, and map ; c. f. ibid., vol. ix, 1892, pp. 190-197. ' 



