Alph River
Coordinates: 78 ° 12 ′ S , 163 ° 45 ′ E
The Alph River is a small meltwater river on the northern flank of the Koettlitz Glacier in the East Antarctic Victoria Land . Its headwaters are the basin of the Pyramid Trough , from where it flows through the Pyramid Ponds , Trough Lake , Walcott Lake , Howchin Lake and Alph Lake in a northerly direction during the summer months . The stretch of river above the Pyramid Ponds is also known as the Upper Alph River .
The section north of the Pyramid Trough was explored in February 1911 by the western group around the geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor (1880-1963) during the Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913). Taylor reported that the river runs northwards over a significant stretch under moraine debris and behind it subglacial under the Koettlitz glacier through to the Ross Sea . This led to the naming of the fictional river of the same name from the poem Kubla Khan by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) published in 1816 , of which it says:
"Where Alph the holy river ran, through caverns immeasurably to man, down into a dark sea."
See also
Web links
- Alph River in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey (English)
- Alph River on geographic.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Upper Alph River in the Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (accessed May 7, 2020).
- ^ Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla Khan . Retrieved on February 16, 2016 in Project Gutenberg : “ Where Alph the sacred river ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea ”.