TARR AND MARTIN'S ALASKAN GLACIER STUDIES

Alaskan Glacier Studies by Ralph S. Tarr of Cornell University and Lawrence Martin of the University of Wisconsin, is the most innovative summary of Alaskan glaciers published prior to the last third of the 20th century. Much of its content is based on expeditions the authors conducted during the first decade of the 20th century to study the glaciers of southeastern and southcentral Alaska. There, they investigated Malaspina Glacier and the glaciers of Yakutat Bay, the Copper River, Cook Inlet, the Alaska Peninsula, Controller Bay, and the Prince William Sound area. Their rationale for studying Alaska glaciers is still relevant 100 years later: “Alaska offered the best field in the world for these investigations, its glaciers being the largest in the world except those of the polar regions. There are thousands of them and only a few of them even have been named.”

Alaskan Glacier Studies was completed by Martin after Tarr’s death in 1912 and published in 1914 by the National Geographical Society. This 498-page volume is the most comprehensive treatment of Alaska’s glaciers published prior to the 1975 aerial-photography-assisted summary prepared by William O. Field and his American Geographical Society colleagues. Well illustrated, Alaskan Glacier Studies’ illustrations include 172 numbered plates, many with multiple photographs; 72 text illustrations; a frontispiece; and 10 folded color maps. This is one of the best illustrated glacier books ever produced.

Tarr and Martin used innovative graphic approaches to il­lustrate the physical appearance and size of many Alaskan glaciers. For instance, they superimposed a map of the greater Boston area on a map of the Malaspina Glacier to show the extent of the area covered by the glacier. Similarly, they superimposed the street plan of the greater Washington, D.C. area on a map of Columbia Glacier to show Columbia’s area of coverage. They depicted scaled images of the U.S. Capitol and other well-known buildings on the vertical fronts of glaciers to show the heights of glacier termini. Additionally, they displayed an outline of three of Europe’s largest alpine glaciers on the outline of Hubbard Glacier to docu­ment its great area and length.

Without doubt, Alaskan Glacier Studies is a seminal addition to the science of glacier studies! It is still timely as we approach its 100th anniversary!