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28 GLACIAL AND SURFACE GEOLOGY OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



It appears that circumstances were very unfavorable for the finding of 

 these ghiciers at the time when the party under the direction of the writer 

 ascended Mount Shasta. They were probably deeply covered with snow ; 

 but, even if they had not been, they might not have been observed, for soon 

 after reaching the summit, and while attending to the barometrical observa- 

 tions, clouds gathered so as entirely to obstruct the view down the slopes of 

 the mountain. There being no glaciers on the south side of the cone, it was 

 not supposed likely that there would be any on the other. According to 

 Mr. King's observations, however, an east and west line divides the mountain 

 into glacier-bearing and non-glacier-bearing halves. At the time of his visit 

 the snow masses were less than had ever been known before ; from the 

 earliest settlement of Strawberry and Shasta Valleys there had never been 

 such a complete denudation of the mountain. The photographs taken by 

 Mr. Watkins at that time show the southern side of the cone to be almost 

 entirely bare ; and it was from the southwest that our party, towards the 

 close of the season of 1862, ascended over a snow-slope at least seven miles 

 in leno;th. 



Mr. King describes three principal glaciers, the largest about four and a 

 half miles in leno;th and two or three miles wide. He remarks as follows: 

 " We explored one after another all the canons, which, approximately follow- 

 ing the radius of the cone, are carved to a greater or less depth with the 

 lava-flows. From the secondary cone around to the eastern side of the main 

 mass are only occasional fields of snow and ice, — bodies of a thousand or 

 two feet long, usually quite narrow, and lying on the more shaded sides of 

 the ravines. In nature and texture they are quite similar to the true glacier 

 ice, possessing in all cases planes of stratification which indicate the pressure 

 of the formerly overlying masses." The principal glacier is on the north 

 slope of the mountain. Of it Mr. King remarks as follows : '' Receiving 

 the snows of the entire north slope of the cone, it falls in a great field, 

 covering the slope of the mountain for a breadth of about three or 

 four miles, reaching down the caiions between four and five miles, its 

 lower edge dividing into a number of lesser ice-streams, which occupy the 

 beds of the caSons. This mass is sufiiciently large to partake of the con- 

 vexity of the cone, and judging from the depths of the canons upon the south 



tlie American Journal of Science, for March, 1871 (Third Series, Vol. I. p. 157), and Mr. Emmons read a 

 pajier entitled "The Volcanoes of the United States Pacific Coast," before the American Geographical Society at 

 its meeting of March 13, 1877. This last-named paper is chiefly devoted to an account of the ascent of JFount 

 Rainier by himself and Mr. A. D. Wilson. 



