Letters to a Friend 



which the moraine was built. Dirt-stained lines 

 curved across the snow-bank from side to side, 

 and when I observed that these curved lines 

 coincided with the curved moraine and that the 

 stones and dirt were most abundant near the bot 

 tom of the bank, I shouted, "A living glacier." 

 These bent dirt lines show that the ice is flowing 

 in its different parts with unequal velocity, and 

 these embedded stones are journeying down to 

 be built into the moraine, and they gradually 

 become more abundant as they approach the 

 moraine because there the motion is slower. 



On traversing my new-found glacier, I came 

 to a crevass, down a wide and jagged portion of 

 which I succeeded in making my way, and dis 

 covered that my so-called snow-bank was clear 

 green ice, and, comparing the form of the basin 

 which it occupied with similar adjacent basins 

 that were empty, I was led to the opinion that 

 this glacier was several hundred feet in depth. 



Then I went to the "snow-banks" of Mts. 

 Lyell and McClure and believed that they also 

 were true glaciers and that a dozen other snow- 



