266 R. S. TARR — FORMER EXTENSION OP CORNELL GLACIER. 



tions these Arctic plants thrive. Given a place to grow and a seed prop- 

 erly placed, the plant will develop and mature its seed in the short 

 summer season. Moreover, even on the higher parts of this nunatak 

 there are some individuals and colonies of the heavy seeded flowering 

 plants ; but these are scattered and are evidently spreading from centers. 

 Wherever one is found there are generall^v others near by, but of some 

 species only one colony was found on the entire mountain. The agents 

 of distribution are the ptarmigan and snow-bunting, which could be seen 

 flying about on the mountain side. The work of plant distribution has 

 just reached this stage, and it is quite certain that there has not been a 

 great lapse of time during which the land has been open to this dis- 

 tribution.* 



Evidence of present Retreat of Cornell Glacier. 



Evidence of recent retreat was found all along the ice-front. The val- 

 ley glacier tongue of mount Hope (described above, page 264) has a fresh 

 moraine fully 100 feet from its terminus. On the margin of this moun- 

 tain a moraine is found at a considerable distance from the present edge 

 of the main ice-sheet. In the same region a marginal lake has been able 

 to change its place of outflow, thus lowering its level as a result of the 

 retreat of the ice-edge. The old recently abandoned channel is dis- 

 tinctly seen ; and that within a very short time it served to discharge the 

 lake waters is proved by the fact that lichens have not yet begun to grow 

 on the rock in the bed of the channel nor on the rock shores of the pres- 

 ent lake below the old level. 



On the moraine along the northern side of the north arm of the Cor- 

 nell glacier we find the same evidence. The moraine embankment 

 stands at a distance of 50 or 100 feet from the present edge of the ice, 

 and it is not a part of the glacier, but distinctly separated from it as a 

 true moraine, not debris-covered ice. This is frequently proved by the fact 

 that the valley occupied by the stream which separates the moraine ridge 

 from the ice, has cut down to the very base of the glacier. So recently 

 have these moraine embankments been abandoned by the glacier that no 

 vegetation exists upon them, neither lichens on the pebbles nor grasses in 

 the clayey soil. In one place, at a distance of 35 feet beyond such a 

 moraine and still farther from the ice, the bed-rock was found to be pol- 

 ished and scratched, and this so recently done that no lichens existed 

 upon it. It is necessary to go 40 feet farther than this to find thoroughly 

 lichen-covered rocks. Therefore at this place the lichens are following 



* A botanical study of the nunatak flora would be of extreme interest. . 



