Forbes Glacier is a glacier

Glacier

A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

 which flows west into the northeast corner of Square Bay

Square Bay

Square Bay is a bay, roughly square in outline and 10 nautical miles wide, indenting the west coast of Graham Land between Nicholl Head and Camp Point. Most of the entrance to the bay is occupied by Horseshoe Island, which limits access to a narrow southern strait opening onto Marguerite Bay and...

, on the west coast of Graham Land

Graham Land

Graham Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in...

. It is 10 nautical miles (18 km) long, 4 nautical miles (7 km) wide in its central part, and narrows to 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) at its mouth. The lower reaches of the glacier were first surveyed in 1936 by the British Graham Land Expedition

British Graham Land Expedition

A British expedition to Graham Land led by John Lachlan Cope took place between 1920 and 1922. The British Graham Land Expedition was a geophysical and exploration expedition to Graham Land in Antarctica between 1934 to 1937. Under the leadership of John Riddoch Rymill, the expedition spent two...

 (BGLE) under Rymill. The survey was completed in 1946-48 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) who named the glacier for James D. Forbes (1809–68), Scottish physicist who was noted for his pioneer works on glaciology.