58 
ALASKA GLACIERS 
topography resulting from stream erosion can fail to be 
impressed with the profound modification here wrought 
by the ice. (See fig. 102.) 
As the extent of the glaciers has varied, masses of 
gravel and other drift have been lodged here and there on 
the valley walls and afterward overridden, and where the 
subsequent action has not sufficed for their removal they 
have been carved into forms harmonious and continuous 
with the contiguous rock forms. Here and there, where 
the rills of the valley wall have trenched these deposits 
so as to expose them in section, one may see horizontal 
bedding in a mass of gravel whose external surface ex¬ 
hibits only the smooth curves of flowing ice. One of the 
larger of these gravel masses lay close to Hidden Glacier, 
against the lower slope of the north wall of the valley 
(pi. v). Upon its sculptured back were scattered boul¬ 
ders left by the ice which had recently overridden it, 
and among them were a few great blocks of white granite, 
brought from some distant source. Descending toward 
the glacier, the surface of this gravel mass ran under one 
of the remnants of unmelted ice to which reference has 
already been made. 
Nunatak Glacier. — Nunatak Fiord, like the fiord of 
Hidden Glacier, has been boldly sculptured by ice. Its 
lofty south wall descends steeply to the water and is com¬ 
paratively simple in contour. The north wall is in gen¬ 
eral lower, is flanked by heavy masses of gravel and other 
drift, and is interrupted by two branching troughs leading 
over saddles of moderate height to the northern part of 
Russell Fiord. These troughs seem to have been largely 
shaped by the ice, which flowed through them to the 
northwest. One is now bare, but the other contains an 
ice mass with the habit of the dying glaciers of Glacier 
Bay. The mass receives a small tributary glacier near its 
summit, but the end seen from Nunatak Fiord in 1899 
