GALIANO AND ATKEVIDA GLACIERS 269 



lying, bulb-shaped terminus. If this is the true interpretation of the 

 phenomenon, as it seems to be, we may expect that the other advancing 

 glaciers will also soon cease their forward movement and return to their 

 former state of stagnation. 



There is a special reason why Galiano glacier might well have been 

 early affected by the cause which is pushing these glaciers forward. It 

 occupies a valley with steeply rising walls, from which the snow might 

 easily be shaken down, and is so short that the effect of such an unusual 

 accession of supply would quickly be transferred to the outer margin of 

 the glacier (plate 13). A comparison of Eussell's photographs with the 

 conditions of 1905 shows clearly that there has actually been a great 

 downf ailing of snow and ice since his photograph was taken (compare 

 figures 1 and 2, plate 13). Large areas of the steeply sloping mountains 

 which were then covered with snow and ice are now bare rock. 



ATBEVIDA GLACIER 



Condition in 1905. — The Atrevida glacier (plates 15—19) descends 

 through a broad, steep-sided mountain valley, and on its emergence 

 spreads out in a fan-shaped piedmont terminus. Where it emerges from 

 its mountain valley it is somewhat more than a mile in width, but outside 

 of the mountains it attains a width of not less than 3 miles. 



In August, 1905, the lower part of this glacier was covered with a 

 broad sheet of moraine, almost completely obscuring the ice, and extend- 

 ing from well within the mountain valley to the terminus of the glacier. 

 On the outer portion of this moraine-covered ice there was a dense alder 

 thicket, so obscuring the moraine that it was impossible from distant 

 views to tell where the glacier ended. 



At this time it was easily possible to travel over any part of the glacier 

 excepting the alder-covered portion, where the dense growth of vegetation 

 obstructed the way. With my party I looked down on th6 glacier from 

 the mountains which rise directly above its eastern margin; later we 

 made a trip out to the middle of the glacier; and still later Messrs Martin 

 and Butler crossed it on their way to Blossom island, following the route 

 which Eussell took in 1890. At that time a mature spruce forest ex- 

 tended close up to the moraine-covered eastern edge of the ice, and a 

 stream emerged from the extreme eastern margin through a tunnel which, 

 so far as we could see, was exactly as it was when Russell photographed 

 it in 1890. (See plate 10, National Geographic Magazine, vol. 3, 1891.) 



The appearance of Atrevida glacier was that of a rapidly wasting ice- 



