Excerpt from Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1912, Vol. 2

Russell has made known to us through his studies of the Malaspina Glacier.

The main region of existing glaciers occupies a roughly semi circular area sweeping from the southern boundary of Alaska, north ward, westward 'and southwestward, toward the Aleutian islands. From either end of this zone both the number and the size of the glaciers increase, and the elevation of their termini decreases, attain ing maximum development near the center of the semicircle that surrounds the head of the Gulf of Alaska. Altogether there are at least forty-seven tidal glaciers in this zone, the southeastern-most being the Le Conte Glacier, just north of Wrangell, and the western most the mccarty Glacier on Kenai peninsula. Toward the ends of the glacier zone there are few and scattered instances of tidal glaciers; but in the central part of the zone they are numerous, and, where topographic conditions favor, are close together. Thus in Glacier Bay there are at least twelve tidal glaciers; in Yakutat Bay three; and in Prince William Sound twenty. (see Plate I).

How many glaciers there are in this coastal area cannot be even approximately estimated; but, counting large and small, tributaries and main ice streams, they are certainly to be numbered by the thousand. These vary in size from tiny ice masses in cirques, to valley glaciers two or three miles in breadth, and thirty or forty miles in length; and up to the great Malaspina Glacier whose area is estimated to be square miles. From the Kenai peninsula to Cross Sound a very large proportion of the seaward face of the mountains is covered with snow and ice, and glaciers exist in a majority of the valleys, filling most of the larger ones. From Con troller Bay to Cross Sound a succession of piedmont glaciers and expanded bulbs of individual glaciers spread out between the moun tain base and the sea. A journey along this coast is, therefore, a constant glacial panorama.

Distribution of Existing Glaciers - The mountains which fringe the Alaskan coast as a continuous barrier, as far west as Cook Inlet, attain their greatest elevation in the St. Elias-fairweather Range where peaks rise to feet, feet in Mount St. Elias, and feet in Mount Logan. Here, naturally, the glaciers are largest, for from this central area the general elevation, as well as the heights of the peaks, diminishes toward both the southeast and the west.

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