1922] EDWARDS, GEOLOGICAL WORK AT RAINER NATIONAL PARK 57 



hour and meet at the central station on the half hour. The time lost at 

 these stations can be utilized by the traveler in visiting the lower end 

 of the Nisqually Glacier and the Narada Falls of Paradise river. 



The lower end of the Nisqually Glacier is at an altitude of four 

 thousand feet and lies only a fevv^ hundred feet distant from the bridge 

 over Nisqually river. It is a solid wall of ice, so filled and covered 

 with rock debris as to be chocolate in color and unrecognizable as an 

 ice mass, as seen at the left in figure 31. The river is shown emerging 

 from under the snout of the glacier. This ice front is about one hun- 



FiG. 31. — The source o£ the Nisqually river. The river runs from under the 

 end or snout of the Nisqually Glacier. 



dred feet in height and forms the extreme end of one of the largest 

 of the glaciers of the mountain. 



Such a glacier is not a mere stationary blanket of snow and ice 

 covering a certain part of the mountain slope, but is an actually moving 

 body which descends the slopes of the mountain by its own weight the 

 same as a river, but with a much slower motion. It is subject to all the 

 laws which govern the courses of streams and is deviated by rock walls 

 and obstructions in the same way a river would be. 



The length of such a glacier is determined by three factors : first. 



