7 6 
ALASKA GLACIERS 
was probably originally shoal. They may have been 
formed recently, or at some earlier epoch. 
The drainage of the ice included several streams 
flowing eastward to the chain of lakes, and we noted 
two important streams from the western ice cliff. One 
of them issued from a cave at the water’s edge near 
the western limit of the cliff, the other from a sub¬ 
merged and invisible tunnel near the middle of the 
cliff. The last mentioned was probably the largest of 
all the draining streams. It rose to the surface at the 
base of the ice cliff and flowed southward over the 
salt water, forming a 
broad lane of milky fresh 
water with a visible cur¬ 
rent and at times nearly 
free from floating ice. 
At most points the 
forest of spruce and hem¬ 
lock approached close 
to the ice, its relation 
being similar to that ob¬ 
served at La Perouse 
Glacier. At the western 
margin of the main ice 
cliff, where the glacier 
crowded against a steep 
rock slope, there was a belt of bare rock, from 200 
to 300 feet broad, between the ice and the forest 
(fig. 38). This belt was strewn with fragments, not 
only of rock but also of wood, and trees were freshly 
overthrown at the margin of the forest. At the time 
of its attack on the forest the ice must have been 100 
feet deeper than in the summer of 1899, and it also 
extended farther southward, as shown by a push-mo¬ 
raine of rock at the water margin, 800 feet from the 
FIG. 38. WESTERN EDGE OF 
COLUMBIA GLACIER. 
Shows barren zone and forest. From a 
photograph taken in June, 1899. 
