552 HARRY FIELDING REID 



Cook Inlet. — A glacier at the head of Tuxedni or Snug Harbor seems to 

 have advanced between 1904 and 191 1. Coast Survey Chart 8554 shows some 

 of the glaciers on Mount Iliamna for the first time and new details of the 

 glaciers on Mount Douglas. 



In 1 913 Archdeacon Stuck found that a marked change had taken place 

 in one of the great ridges of Mount McKinley since Parker's ascent in 191 2; 

 the snow and ice had broken away from a larger portion of the ridge, owing, 

 possibly, to the earthquake of July 6, 191 2. 



In the absence of M. Charles Rabot, the retiring president of the 

 Commission International des Glaciers, his report to the Twelfth 

 International Congress of Geologists at Toronto was presented by 

 Mr. Emile de Margerie.^ It may be summarized as follows: 



At present the glaciers throughout the world are in general 

 retreating. Though in some regions, as Iceland, the retreat is 

 slight, in others, such as Alaska, Norway, and the Alps, it is very 

 marked. Thus in the Pelvoux massif, several small glaciers have 

 entirely disappeared in the last thirty years. 



The retreat, which has lasted for a century in Norway, and 

 for fifty or sixty years in the Alps has been interrupted by small 

 temporary advances. In Norway an advance in the last few years 

 is dying out; in the French Alps and in the Pyrenees a secondary 

 advance is developing. 



A careful search of old documents has revealed the variations 

 of the Chamonix glaciers since 1580. A strong advance occurred 

 during the last years of the sixteenth century; others in 1643, i^i 

 1663, and in 1716; the last culminated only about 1741. The 

 variations since then were already known: a new advance began 

 near the end of the eighteenth century, reached its maximum in 

 1818-20, and continued, but in a mild form, until the middle of the 

 nineteenth century; since then the glaciers have been in retreat. 

 It seems that the advance about 1600 was greater than had occurred 

 for several generations before that date; and that, since then, the 

 glaciers have not been as reduced as they are at present. In Nor- 

 way, also, branches of the Jostedalsbrae and of the Svartisen 

 advanced strongly in the first quarter of the eighteenth century; 

 and in Iceland an increase of the glaciation seems to have existed 



^ The report is printed in the Comptes rendus of the Congress, pp. 144-48, and in 

 Zeitschrift ftir Gletscherkunde, VIII (1914), 263-69. 



