424 HARRY FIELDING REID 
and maps made of their ends. In general, where definite informa- 
tion was obtainable the glaciers proved to be in retreat, but some of 
them appeared to be advancing. Evidence was found of an advance 
of Columbia Glacier perhaps 50 years ago, and also of an earlier 
recession. About 1894 there was an advance, followed by a 
retreat. In 1905 the ice had retreated 160 feet behind its limit in 
1899, but had regained too feet in 1908. Between July 15, 1908, 
and August 23, 1909, the ice advanced 380 feet. 
Professor Lawrence Martin sends me the following account of 
the changes in a number of Alaskan glaciers between rg1o and rg11': 
Copper River—The Childs Glacier, which advanced about 1,800 feet 
between the spring of 1909 and the autumn of 1910, for the most part in the 
season of 1910, moved forward 97 feet in the following eight months.?_ This 
movement, measured at the northern margin, where the glacier was only 1,474 
feet from the Copper River and Northwestern Railway bridge in 1911, is at a 
much less rapid rate than during the previous summer, and the Copper River 
railway bridge is probably safe from the glacier during the closing stages of the 
present period of spasmodic advance; the river will probably always protect 
the bridge by undercutting the ice front during periods of rapid advance which 
come at high water, for the summer volume of the river is about equal to that 
of the Mississippi. This brief, spasmodic advance of Childs Glacier suggests 
the earthquake avalanche type seen 190 miles east in Yakutat Bay. 
Miles Glacier, whose advance from 1908 to 1910 was 1,800 to 4,000 feet, in 
different portions of the ice cliff, had nearly ceased its rapid forward movement 
in June, torr. The Grinnell Glacier continued during the winter of 1910-11 a 
slight advance, commenced the summer before. Allen Glacier showed no 
changes from 1910 to 1911. The Heney Glacier, which was stagnant for a 
long time before September, 1910, was newly crevassed and beginning to 
advance in June, Iorl. 
Southeast of Mt. Wrangell, the Kennicott Glacier, at whose margin a 
railway has recently been built, is stagnant and inactive, as it has been since 
before 1898. The Chitistone Glacier, some distance east of the Kennicott, is 
reported by R. F. McClellan to have advanced about half a mile during the 
winter of 1910-11. 
Alaskan Range-—The Gulkana, Cantwell, Castner, and a large unnamed 
glacier near Rapids Roadhouse were inactive and retreating in 1911, as they 
have been for several years. 
1 See also Lawrence Martin, “‘The National Geographical Society Researches in 
Alaska,” Nat. Geog. Mag., June, 191t. 
2TIn the table giving the variations of the Childs Glacier in the last report, 
** Advance in Feet”’ should be substituted for ‘‘ Advance in Meters.” 
