National Geographic : 1910 Jan
THE GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY'S ALASKAN EXPEDITION THE HUBBARD GLACIER CLIFF COMPARED IN HEIGHT WITH THE MASONIC TEMPLE IN CHICAGO The innumerable branches of a glacial torrent often interpose obstacles to direct travel; the crevasses of a glacier surface make frequent detours necessary. While we were stopping for lunch at a glacier margin one day a series of avalanches built up a deposit of mud and stones 50 feet by Ioo and from 5 to 30 feet thick. It contained boulders as much as 6 feet by 4 by 4 and shifted a stream 50 feet laterally into an alder thicket. A brown bear with a half-grown cub, meeting one on the march and coming up to within 20 feet, lead one to sometimes wish for a gun, and, subsequently, to re gret lack of presence of mind in utilizing the camera. The submerging at midnight of a camp on the beach by an exception ally high tide, so that the water stands 14 inches deep on the tent floor, is not the pleasantest of incidents. These accidents, however, are easily forgotten exceptions to the general rule of glacier study in Alaska. The series of beautiful panoramas of mountain and plain, fiord and glacier, the excellence and variety of glacial phenomena exhib ited-all these lend zest to the work and make the season among the Alaskan glaciers far too short. THE ENTERPRISE OF VALDEZ In the regions visited by the National Geographic Society's Expedition the re lations of the glaciers to life are striking. When stagnant and moraine-veneered the glaciers are the seat of abundant vege tation, which is destroyed when the ice tongues advance and when they melt and the moraine soil slumps down. As gla ciers retreat, vegetation follows. The gravelly stream bottoms are the seat of vegetation which is easily destroyed by the rapidly shifting glacial streams. The Malaspina and adjacent glaciers are used as highways of travel, the former being utilized by the mountain climbers, Russell, Bryant, and Abruzzi. The Nunatak and Fourth glaciers were crossed by hundreds of prospectors dur ing the gold rushes, the latter being still a highway to the Alsek Valley. Glaciers and glacial streams also erode, transport, and deposit the gold which later concen tration has made it profitable to wash on some of the Yakutat Bay beaches.