82 
ALASKA GLACIERS 
photographs of the Port Wells glaciers are reproduced by 
photogravure to illustrate the narrative of the Expedition, 
and, to avoid needless repetition, I have selected for my 
own use only the views most important in connection with 
my text, but I shall refer freely to the plates of volume i. 
College Fiord is from two to three miles broad and 
about twenty miles long, trending north-northeast and 
south-southwest. Near the south end, where it joins the 
main body of Port Wells, there is a bay on the east side 
overlooked by two non-tidal glaciers. The larger of these 
was called Amherst by the Expedition, the name being 
given in honor of an American college. Somewhat north 
of the middle the fiord sends an arm to the northeast, and 
this arm receives a large tidal glacier, the Yale. At the 
head of the main fiord is the Harvard, also a large tidal 
glacier. Several branches of the Harvard were visible 
from the ship, and that next to the ice front on the north¬ 
west was named Radcliffe. A series of glaciers on the 
northwest side of the fiord resembled the Radcliffe in 
general character, and four of these received names — 
Smith, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, and Wellesley. 
Amherst Glacier was passed by the ship at some dis¬ 
tance, and its features are known chiefly through the pho¬ 
tographs secured by Merriam (pi. xiv). It is fed by 
neves in full view from the fiord, and approaches the sea 
in a short, broad stream which at first descends steeply 
and afterwards more gently. The habit of the lowland 
lying between the glacier and the ocean indicates that it 
is built of morainic material. Near the sea is a belt of 
timber, but this is separated from the ice by a barren tract 
similar to that about Davidson Glacier. A barren zone 
several hundred yards broad is seen to flank the glacier on 
the southwest, and a similar zone borders its companion, 
Crescent Glacier. These features doubtless indicate shrink¬ 
age in modern times, the change having been of moderate 
