MAEVINE GLACIER 273 



of repose, accompanied by a return of the moraine-covered condition and 

 growth of an alder thicket on the outer margin. 



MARVINE GLACIER 



Previous condition. — We did not visit this glacier (plates 20-23) in 

 1905, but had clear views of it, throiigh field glasses, from several points, 

 the nearest being that obtained by Messrs Martin and Butler on the west- 

 ern side of Floral pass, where only the Hayden glacier intervened. Russell 

 crossed it near Blossom island in 1890, and on his retreat in 1891 he trav- 

 eled over its seaward margin from point Manby to Kwik river, where it 

 forms the eastern part of Malaspina glacier. Abruzzi and Bryant, in 

 1897, starting at Osar river, near point Manb}^, on the shores of Yakutat 

 bay, entered on their explorations by first crossing the seaward end of 

 that part of Malaspina glacier which is dominated by the Marvine. 

 From the description of these explorers, it is evident that both Marvine 

 glacier and the eastern part of the Malaspina, which the Marvine sup- 

 plies, were then smooth and easily traversed. Our distant views in 1905 

 led us to believe that it was not then altered from this condition. Had 

 the glacier then been crevassed even approximately as much as in 1906, 

 when the broken surface was readily visible from a distance, even to the 

 naked eye, we surely could not have overlooked it. 



Condition in 1906. — In Jul)^, 1906, we traveled along the eastern mar- 

 gin of the Malaspina and Marvine glaciers to a point 3 or 4 miles beyond 

 Blossom island, returning in August along the same route, in each jour- 

 ney crossing Hayden glacier with ease. Later we skirted the seaward 

 face of the Malaspina as far as point Manby. We also looked down on 

 it from several high points, so that in the course of the season we saw the 

 entire Marvine glacier from the sea well back into its moimtain valley. 



The entire glacier margin, from point Manjjy well into the mountain 

 valley to the. north of Blossom island, is impassably crevassed. Where 

 Marvine glacier emerges from the mountains it is a sea of crevasses from 

 side to side and as far up the valley as we could look (plate 20, fig- 

 ure 1).* It is therefore now utterly impossible to cross this glacier 

 where Russell traveled over it so easily in 1890. From this point to the 

 sea, a distance of not less than 15 miles, the piedmont ice plateau is 

 broken by a maze of crevasses, rendering the entire eastern portion of 

 Malaspina glacier now impassable (plate 20, figure 2). This crevassed 



* Owing to an accident, by which I was upset in the Kwik river, the photographic 

 plates which were in my pack were in the water about five minutes, which accounts for 

 the bad condition of this and some of the other pictures. 

 XXIV— Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 18, 1906 



