The Editor,

Journal of Glaciology

Sir,

Though unable to refer to the report of the Woods Yukon Expedition of 1935 and unenlightened by the enigmatic footnote on p. 363 of the paper by Reference Crossley, and Clarke,Crossley and Clarke (1970) on “Fox Glacier”, I have the impression that this and other nearby glacier names originated recently and informally, and have not received the approval of some authority having jurisdiction over geographic names. At least one other Fox Glacier is probably better known to glaciologists already. We cannot do much about duplicated place-names of long usage and in many cases the danger of confusion is negligible, but there does appear to be a case against casual adoption of new names which not only introduce duplication but may also cause confusion because writings about them will be in similar scientific contexts, even if the places are oceans apart. Sensing a rather reluctant use of quotation marks by the authors and fearing that they may be omitted in future by official sanction or habit, may I urge that some more original alternative be sought for the permanent name of this glacier?