34 
ALASKA GLACIERS 
dimensions raised questions as to the mode of calving. 
Reid, from studies of the Muir, inferred that waste along 
the ice front was chiefly from melting by sea water; and 
this melting, in combination with the forward flow of the 
ice, produced an overhang, resulting in the breaking away 
of the upper portion of the glacier by its own weight. 
Such observations as I was able to make at various ice 
cliffs were in full accord with his view, and the great 
bergs of Reid Inlet may perhaps have been formed in that 
way; but their size led me to wonder whether another 
process might not be involved. Many of the immense 
bergs of the Antarctic Ocean are tabular in form, and it is 
believed that they have the full thickness of the parent 
glaciers, which were protruded into the sea until actually 
floating upon its surface before the separation took place. 
In order that the Grand 
Pacific or the Johns Hop- 
kins should produce 
bergs of this type, it 
would be necessary that 
the depth of the fiord in 
front of the ice cliff 
should be not less than 
seven-eighths the thick¬ 
ness of the glacier. 
Hugh Miller Inlet. — 
Hugh Miller Inlet oc¬ 
cupies an irregular re¬ 
cess among the hills and 
mountains on the south¬ 
west side of Glacier Bay. 
Rocky islands of moder¬ 
ate elevation half block its entrance and interrupt its sur¬ 
face. Charpentier Glacier reaches it from the south, ter¬ 
minating in a low ice cliff about seven-eighths of a mile 
FIG. 17. MAP OF HUGH MILLER INLET. 
Showing positions of the ice front in different 
years. I,and areas are ruled. 
