326 The American Geologist. May, 1892 
ains have been visited by a number of persons, but I have been 
unable to obtain satisfactory evidence of advance or recession. 
An inspection of photographs of the glacier on Mt. Rainer indi- 
cates that they end in areas bare of vegetation, which presum- 
ably were recently occupied by ice. 
British Columbia: The glaciers of British Columbia, although 
numerous and important, are but imperfectly known, and only a 
few observations on recent changes have been made. Many of 
these glaciers, however, have been seen by Dr. G. M. Dawson, 
who informs me that in no instance are there evidences that they 
have recently advanced, and considers it is safe to assume that they 
are either stationary or slowly receding. 
R. G. MeConnel, of the Canadian Geological Survey, has 
kindly informed me that the glaciers, both on the Stikine river 
and in the Rocky mountains, have shrunken back from fresh look- 
ing moraines, and that the intervals between the ice and the mo- 
raines, in all instances examined by him, were destitute of trees 
and contained but little vegetation of any kind. In his opinion a 
marked retreat has occurred within the last century or two, but 
whether it has been in progress during the past one or two dec- 
ades cannot be decided from the evidence in hand.  Observa- 
tions made by Macoun and Ingersoll confirm this conclusion. * 
I visited the IHlecellewaet glacier at Glacier station, on the 
Canadian Pacific Railroad, in the spring of 1891, and found a. 
barren area, intervening between the ice and the encircling forest, 
several hundred yards in breadth, which had evidently been but 
recently abandoned by the glacier. A small moraine on the 
western side of the glacier also suggested a recent shrinking of 
the ice. ‘The evidence of a recent retreat of this glacier has 
also been noted by W. 8. Green + 
An absence of vegetation about the extremity of one of the 
glaciers on Stikine river was noted by Blake,} and may probably 
be taken as an indication of a recent retreat of the ice. A legend 
current among the Stikine Indians indicates that two glaciers on 
opposite sides of the stream were formerly united and that the 
river then flowed through a tunnel beneath the ice. 
*Mountaineering in British Columbia, by Ernest Ingersoll, Bull. Am. 
Geog, Soc., Vol. xviit, 1886, p. 18. 
+tAmong the Selkirk glaciers, London, 1890, p. 69. 
tAmerican Jour, Sci, Vol. xirv, 1867, pp. 96-101. 
