July 17th

This morning, McBride, Adams and I went over to station K to observe the flags on the ice. We found [but?] one, apparently the last black flag from W side. the others have probably fallen. The wind presses the pipe against the side of the ice and the upper part of the pipe being warmed by the sun melts the side of the whole; the flag pipe droops over more and more and finally falls out. The new flags to be put up must be four times as large as the old ones to be more easily found. The flag we saw seemed to be well out in the worst part of the ice. The glacier must be tried nearer to its end the next time. We then went to the top of the ridge just south of the K ridge. From there we had a beautiful view of Pyramid peak. I went alone to the western end of this ridge. From here a small glacier was visible below which seemed to have no [feeders?], and to fall away both toward Muir Inlet and towards a second inlet, which comes in from the west from Glacier Bay. The view was very beautiful. I made two or three sketches. Pyramid Peak was very enticing. We must climb it soon. When we returned to the beach we took a bath in a small moraine lake near station AB.

From AB and from camp we sighted on several points of the glacier front to fix its position. We shall use the plane table to make frequent maps of the glacier front and thus determine what changes take place during our stay here. Morse kept camp again; Cushing and Casement ascended the hill behind camp.