﻿GLACIAL STUDIES IX THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 

 AND SELKIRKS 



(Smithsonian Expedition, Season of [904.) 

 Preli m inary Report 



By WILLIAM HITTELL SHERZER, I'm. I > 



The glaciers selected for special investigation and report are 

 located in Alberta and British Columbia, along the line of the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway ; being those which arc at the present time 

 most readily accessible to the tourist, or student of glacial phe- 

 nomena. 1 They represent the outflow from the great snow-ice masses 

 which accumulate, season after season, upon the higher slopes of 

 the Rockies and Selkirks. These five glaciers, upon which a pre- 

 liminary report only is here offered, lie in north latitude 51 ° 12' to 

 51 ° 38' and west longitude 116 12' to 117 30', about 100 miles 

 north of the international boundary. Owing to the interposition of 

 three minor ranges between the Canadian Rockies and the warm 

 waters of the Pacific, all of them having a north to south trend, the 

 moisture-laden westerly winds yield an abundant precipitation upon 

 the western slopes of these ranges, leaving relativelv little for the 

 main range itself. This loss, however, is more than compensated by 

 extra altitude and by the greater size of the catchment basins between 

 the ranges of that great stone heap known as the Rocky Mountains. 

 The records of the Canadian Meteorological Service, available since 

 1890, give for Banff, lying just east of the continental divide, an 

 average annual rainfall of 12.89 inches and of snow 81.0 inches. 

 When reduced, this represents a total precipitation of 21.08 inches, 

 or in snowfall 17.57 feet. At Glacier House, in the Selkirks, near 

 which are located the two westernmost glaciers studied, the total aver- 

 age precipitation is 2yj, times as great, giving 56.63 inches as rain, 

 or 47.19 feet when all reduced to snow. Practicallv this entire 

 amount over the collecting areas is available for the making of 

 glaciers, since when it rains in the valley it very commonly snows 

 over the neve region and when rain does fall here it is absorbed and 

 soon converted into ice. 



1 A brief report of this expedition appeared in the Quarterly Issue of 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 47, p. 298. 



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