652 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



parts are continually being replenished course, where the glacier overrides 



by fresh snowfalls, which at those high obstacles in its bed, the crevasses are 



altitudes do not entirely melt away in particularly numerous and irregiilarly 



summer; while the lower end, projecting spaced, sometimes occurring in two sets 



as it does below the snow line, loses intersecting at right angles, and pro- 



annually more by melting than it re- ducing square-cut prisms. Farther down 



ceived by precipitation, and is main- the ice stream's current is more sluggish 



tained only by the continued accession and the crevasses heal up by degrees, 



of masses from above. The rate at providing a united surface, over which 



which the ice advances has been deter- one may travel freely, 

 mined by Prof. T. N. Le Conte, of the 



University of California. In 1903 he snowcups and honeycombs. 



placed a row of stakes across the glacier, At the high altitudes the sun heat is 



and with the aid of surveying instru- astonishingly intense, as more than one 



ments obtained accurate measurements uninitiated mountain climber has learned 



of the distances through which they to his sorrow by neglecting to take the 



moved from day to day. He found that customary precaution of blacking his 



in summer, when the movement is face before making the ascent. In a few 



greatest, it averages 16 inches per day. hours the skin is literally scorched and 



This figure, however, applies only to the begins to blister painfully, 



central portion of the glacier — the main At the foot of the mountain the sun 



current, so to speak — for the margins heat is relatively feeble, for much of it is 



necessarily move more slowly, being absorbed by the dust and vapor in the 



retarded by friction against the channel lower layers of the atmosphere, but on 



sides. the summit, which projects 2 miles 



As one continues the ascent by the higher, the air is thin and pure, and lets 



wagon road a partial view of the glacier's the rays pass through but little dimin- 



lower course is obtained, and there is ished in strength. 



gained some idea of its stream-like The manner in which the sun affects 



character. More satisfying are the the snow is peculiar and distinctive, 



views from Paradise Park. Here several Instead of reducing the surface evenly, 



miles of the ice stream (its total length it melts out many close-set cups and 



is nearly 5 miles) lie stretched out at hollows, a foot or more in diameter and 



one's feet, while looking up toward the separated by sharp spires and crests, 



mountain one beholds the tributary ice No water is visible anywhere, either in 



fields and ice streams, pouring, as it rills or in pools, evaporation keeping 



were, from above, from right and left, pace with the reduction. If the sun's 



rent by innumerable crevasses and re- action is permitted to continue un- 



sembHng foaming cascades suddenly interrupted for many days, as may 



crystallized in place. The turmoil of happen in a hot, dry summer, these 



these upper branches may be too snow cups deepen by degrees, until at 



confusing to be studied with profit, but length they assimie the aspect of gigan- 



the more placid lower course presents tic bee cells, several feet in depth. Snow 



a favorable field for observation, and a fields thus honeycombed may be met 



readily accessible one at that. with on the slopes above Gibraltar 



A veritable frozen river it seems. Rock. They are wearisome to traverse, 



flowing between smooth, parallel banks, for the ridges and spines are fairly 



half a mile apart. Its surface, in con- resistant, so that one must laboriously 



trast to the glistening ice cascades above, clamber over them. Most exasperating 



has the prevailingly somber tint of old however, is the going after a snowstorm 



ice, relieved here and there by bright has filled the honeycombs. Then the 



patches of last winter's snow. These traveler, waist deep in mealy snow, is 



lie for the most part in gaping fissures left to flounder haphazard through a 



or crevasses that run athwart the hidden labyrinth. 



glacier at short intervals and divide its Of interest in this connection is the 



body into narrow slices. In the upper great snow cliff immediately west of 



