I. C. Russell — Mt. St. Elias and its Glaciers. 177 



lobe lies between the Chaix and Robinson hills, and its main 

 supply of ice is from the Tyndall and G-uyot glaciers ; its cen- 

 tral current is southward. , The direction of flow in the several 

 lobes explains the distribution of the moraines about their 

 borders. 



The Seward lobe melts away before reaching Yakutat bay, 

 but its southern margin has been eaten into by the ocean, 

 forming the Sitkagi bluffs. The Agassiz lobe is complete, and 

 is fringed all about its distal extremity by broad moraines. 

 The Guyot lobe pushes boldly out into the ocean and breaking 

 off, forms magnificent ice cliffs which are the finest of any of 

 the tide-water glaciers of the Pacific coast. The waves under- 

 mining these cliffs, cause large masses of ice to break away and 

 topple over into the sea, thus forming great numbers of bergs. 

 This is the only instance known in Alaska, where a glacier 

 advances into the open ocean. 



Surface of fringing Moraine. — A peculiar and interesting 

 feature of the moraines on the stagnant borders of the Malas- 

 pina glacier, is furnished by the lakelets which occur everywhere 

 upon them. These are found in great numbers both in the 

 iorest-covered moraine and in the outer border of the barren 

 moraine. They are usually rudely circular and have . steep 

 walls of dirty ice, which slope towards the water at high angles, 

 "but are undercut at the bottom, so that in a vertical section 

 they have something of an hour-glass form. The crater-like 

 walls are all the time melting, and the morainal material 

 which forms the upper two or three feet of their rims, 

 is undermined and slides and rolls down the steep slopes, 

 and accumulates in the basins, below. These lakes last from 

 year to year, but are finally drained, usually through a cre- 

 vasse or opening of some sort at the bottom, and the basins 

 are left with a deep filling of bowlders and stones. As the 

 general surface of the glacier melts away, the ice beneath 

 these thick accumulations of debris is protected and left in 

 relief as the less deeply covered surface melts. The debris is 

 thus raised on a pedestal, but does not behave like a single 

 great bowlder. It slides away in all directions and a pyramid 

 of ice sheathed with debris is the result. What was a crater- 

 like depression, possibly seventy-five or a hundred yards across 

 and a hundred feet deep, becomes in this way a pyramid fifty 

 or sixty feet high. These pyramids are of the nature of the 

 sand cones so common on many glaciers which are covered 

 with light moraines, but instead of being annual as are most 

 sand cones, they are perennial and only pass through their cycle 

 of change once in several years. The alternate formation of 

 lake basins and of debris pyramids, has an important effect in 

 breaking up the stones and bowlders of which the moraines 



