190 The American Geologist. September, 1894 
constituents. The origin of the calcite is difficult to determine; it is 
not a decomposition product in the ordinary sense, and it does not seem 
to till microlitic cavities. In an accompanying paper Dr. B.'J. Harring- 
ton gives analyses of some of the minerals of this nepheliae syenite. 
U. S. G. 
Second Expedition to Mount St. EUas, in 1891. By Israel Cook Rus- 
sell. Pages 91; plates ni-xxxi. and six figures. (Advance extract 
from the Thirteenth Annual Report of the V. S. Geol. Survey, for 1891- 
'92; Washington, 181)4.) The observations made by Prof. Russell, in 
ltis two expeditious to Mount St. Elias. concerning the transportation 
and deposition of till by the Malaspina glacier or ice-sheet and the sup- 
ph of large amounts of modified drift to the streams of its melting by 
which they are deposited as eskers, kames, and extensive Hood-plains. 
have greatly stimulated the researches of American glacialists to de- 
termine the proportions of the Pleistocene drift borne along respective- 
ly in the mass of the ice-sheet and beneath it. and how it acted to heap 
up the drumlins of New England. New York, Wisconsin. Ireland, and 
Scotland, and to form the conspicuous esker ridges of Maine and Sweden 
and. in less abundance, of all glaciated areas. These and similar ques- 
tions, relating to the genesis or methods of formation of the glacial and 
modified drift, at present enlist the attention of workers in this field as 
never before: and for the advancement of knowledge in these directions 
Profs. Chamberlin, Wright, and others, are now absent in exploration 
of the borders of the Greenland ice-sheet. By these studies of living 
glaciers analogous in all their phenomena with the Pleistocene conti- 
nental ice-sheets, we may hope to attain a much clearer conception of 
the history of the Glacial period and the origin of its widely diverse and 
Complex drift formations. 
A ma]) <>f the Malaspina glacier and St. Elias mountains shows Prof. 
Russell's routes in 1890 and 1891. In the second expedition he ascended 
to a highl of 14,500 feet on the northeastern slope of Si. Elias. and ex- 
plored the western central portion and forest-covered front of the gla- 
cier, taking very interesting notes of the streams outflowing from it, 
named the Yahtse river, Vahna. Fountain. Manby. Osar. Kame, Kwik. 
and Esker streams. The glacier or ice-sheet covers an area of about 
1,500 square miles, having an extent of some 70 miles from east to west 
along the coast, with a breadth of 30 to 25 miles, and a general eleva- 
tion of about 1,500 feet five or six miles from its outer border. At Ic\ 
cape itsGuyol lobe pushes boldly forward into the ocean, and. with its 
front constantly breaking off to form icebergs, terminates in magnifi- 
cent ice cliffs estimated to be at least 300 or 400 feet high. 
Seen from a distance of several miles, the cliffs of Icy cape appeared 
to contain no drift, though the snrl'ac f the ice there, as all along its 
borders adjoining the sea, is drift-covered. The surface of the central 
parts of the ice-sheet, however, is free from drift, excepting along mo- 
rainic lines streaming downward from spurs and foot-hills of the moun- 
tains. Near its border the ablation of its surface seems to uncover 
much drift which had been borne along in the middle and basal pur- 
