VARIEGATED GtAClER 263 



underlying ice was only occasionally revealed. It was this stagnant outer 

 portion which reached up to and coalesced with Hubbard glacier. 



Within this outer stagnant area was a long crescent-shaped depression 

 (plate 10) underlaid by ice, into which two glacial streams, emerging 

 from the moraine-covered inner portion of Variegated glacier, poured 

 their sediment, building up a broad flat through the coalescing of the 

 alluvial fans. On emerging from the ice the larger, or southeastern, 

 stream entered a canyon in the granite bed rock, and after a short course, 

 interrupted by a notable M^aterfall, emerged from it at the head of its 

 alluvial fan (plate 10, figure 1). 



Inside of and concentric with this interior alluvial flat, the moraine- 

 covered ice rose steeply in a succession of concentric ridges of variously 

 colored moraines — red, orange, and purple. This inner portion of the 

 glacier, although almost completely covered with moraine (plate 9, 

 figure 2), was evidently more active than that part which lay outside 

 the interior flat. Vegetation was represented only by occasional annual 

 plants, and now and then by a willow a year or two old. The moraine was 

 so thin that ice was frequently visible and could almost always be reached 

 by thrusting the ice-ax into the moraine. There was no crevassing, and 

 it was evident that this part of the glacier, like the portion within the 

 mountain valley, was rapidly wasting. The inner edge of this moraine- 

 covered area, lying almost at the very mouth of the mountain valley, was 

 crescentic in outline and rose steeply and abruptly above the rapidly 

 melting clear ice of the valley glacier (plate 9, figure 1 ) .* 



Condition in 1906. — The above description applies to Variegated 

 glacier in the middle of August, 1905. When we again saw it, late in 

 June, 1906, it was absolutely altered (compare figures 1 and 2, plate 8). 

 The area of stagnant ice outside of the interior fiat was unchanged. 

 The flat itself was also essentially as it was in 1905, though slightly 

 smaller; but all the ice to the northeast of the flat was broken into an 

 impassable condition (plate 8, figure 2). In a period of ten months 

 this glacier was altered from one over which we easily passed, making a 

 journey of over 12 miles in a single day,f to one whose crevassed margin, 

 even, we found it impossible to ascend without the laborious work of cut- 

 ting steps in the ice. 



Not only was the moraine-covered expansion, just outside of the moun- 

 tain valley, broken into a labyrinth of crevasses, but this condition ex- 



* For further description and illustration of this glacier, see Tarr and Martin, Bull. 

 American Geographical Society, vol. 38, 1906, pp. 147-149. 



t This refers merely to the distance in a straight line, for we made many side trips 

 during this day. 



