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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



visit, but saw from a distance, the ice had 

 crowded up on the stoss side of the 

 nunatak nearly to its top, while the dis- 

 tributary west of the nunatak had pro- 

 truded entirely through its valley and was 

 nearly, if not quite, united with the main 

 glacier below the nunatak. 



In the central part of the glacier the 

 new-formed rents extended down into 

 the previously nearly stagnant bulb, but 

 not into the alder-covered zone. There 

 the advance of the Lucia had not ex- 

 tended so far as that of the Atrevida in 

 1906, when the broken ice affected even a 

 part of the alder zone of its piedmont 

 bulb. But it seems probable that the ad- 

 vance of Lucia glacier, which was cer- 

 tainly in progress in the summer of 1909, 

 was not as far advanced as that of the 

 Atrevida in 1906. As will be seen from 

 the descriptions which follow, the flood 

 impulse is rapid and soon dies out. Quite 

 probably the flood of the Lucia will have 

 attained its height by 19 10. 



REMARKABLE TRANSFORMATION OF 

 HIDDEN GLACIER 



While the Hubbard glacier is appar- 

 ently in a very early stage of advance, 

 and Lucia glacier has not yet reached the 

 maximum of its flood stage, the Hidden 

 glacier has entered upon and completely 

 passed through flood condition in the in- 

 terval between 1906 and 1909. In late- 

 June, 1906, the Hidden glacier was seen 

 and photographed from near the sea, but 

 it was then so like its condition in 1905 

 that it was not studied further ; but in 

 1905, because of certain interesting phe- 

 nomena, it was studied carefully, and 

 photographed from various points. It 

 was then, and in 1906 still was, a low 

 grade, smooth-surfaced glacier, almost, if 

 not quite, stagnant, ending in a gently- 

 sloping front, quite free from debris, over 

 which one could easily travel in all direc- 

 tions. The ice front lay about 2' miles 

 from the sea, and in the interval between 

 Gilbert and Gannett's visit in 1899 and 

 ours in 1905 it had receded about a quar- 

 ter of a mile. Beyond the apparent front 

 of the glacier, between it and the sea, lay 

 a pitted gravel plain, partly resting on 



stagnant ice still connected with the 

 glacier. Altogether the Hidden glacier 

 was so perfect a type of an inactive val- 

 ley glacier in a waning state that one 

 would never have thought of predicting 

 for it a sudden change to activity and 

 complete transformation to a broken con- 

 dition. Yet that is exactly what hap- 

 pened immediately after it was last seen 

 in 1906, and possibly even late in that 

 year (see pages 42—43). 



Notwithstanding the almost magical 

 transformation of glaciers to which we 

 had by that time become accustomed, our 

 astonishment was so great as almost to 

 make us disbelieve our own senses when 

 Hidden glacier burst upon our view in 

 July, 1909. Russell called this Hidden 

 glacier because, as he sailed up Russell 

 Fiord, it was almost hidden from view, 

 appearing for only a short time as its 

 valley opened, revealing the glacier 

 nestled between the steep mountain walls 

 over 2 miles from the sea. As we 

 rounded the northern wall of the valley 

 in July, 1909, the glacier burst upon our 

 view so high and so near that we at first 

 thought it tidal. As a matter of fact, its 

 front was still a quarter of a mile from 

 the sea, but it was nearly 2 miles farther 

 down its valley than in 1905 and 1906, 

 and higher and steeper than the front 

 then was. It had advanced over all of 

 our bench-marks and important photo- 

 graphic sites which we had located pri- 

 marily for the purpose of recording 

 future recession. The most important of 

 our sites was beneath 500 feet of ice and 

 in front of it stretched 2 miles of glacier. 



Not only had the glacier advanced, but 

 it had become profoundly crevassed. 

 However, the advance had occurred so 

 long ago that ablation had healed much of 

 the crevassing, making it possible for us 

 to travel over parts of the glacier surface, 

 though only when the party was roped to- 

 gether, and then by the use of much care, 

 and with many detours around yawning 

 crevasses. The glacier surface was far 

 different from the smooth state of 1905 

 and 1906. It was a tumultuous series of 

 great swells and troughs, with abundant 

 crevasses, in spite of the pronounced 



