C. King — Olaciers on Mountains of the Pacific iSbpe. 159 



Shasta, and saw directly beneath us a fine glacier, which staiio.l 



us, and curving around the circular base of our cone. Its em ii^ 

 length in view was not less than three miles, its width opposite 

 our station about four thousand feet, the surface here and tljcre 

 terribly broken in " cascades," and presenting all the charac- 

 teristic features of similar glaciers elsewhere. The region .)f 

 the terminal moraine was more extended than is usual in the 

 Alps. The piles of rubbish superimposed upon the end of 

 the ice indicated a much greater thickness of the glacier in 

 former days. After finishing our observations upon tlie ^-ide 

 crater, and spending a night upon the sharp edge of its rim, on 

 the following morning we climbed over the divide to the main 

 cone, and up to the extreme summit of Shasta, a point 14,440 

 feet above the sea level. From the crest I walked out to tlie 

 northern edge of a prominent spur, and looked down u])on the 

 system of three considerable glaciers, the largest about four and 

 a half miles in length, and two to three miles wide. On tlie 

 next day we descended upon the south side of the cone, follow- 

 ing the ordinary track by which earlier parties have made the 

 chmb. From the moment we left the summit we encountered 

 less and less snow, and at no part of the journey were able to 

 see a glacier. An east-and-west line divides the mountain into 

 glacier-bearing and non-glacier-bearing halves. The ascent was 

 formerly always made upon the south side where, as stated, 

 there are no glaciers, and this is why able scientific observers 

 like Professor Whitney and his party should have scaled the 

 mountain without discovering their existence. 



Before and after the ascent of Mount Shasta, a week was given 

 to an examination of the southern half of the volcano. Since 

 the earliest settlement of Strawberry and Shasta valleys, there 

 has never been such a complete denudation. From June to 

 November, the snow masses were less than they have ever been 

 seen before. This favored very greatly our geological observa- 

 tions, and gave us an excellent opportunity to study the relics 

 of the former great neve. We explored one after another all 

 the canons which, approximatelv following the radius of the 

 cone, are carved to a greater or less depth into the lava-flows. 

 From the secondary '^cone around to the eastern side of the 

 Daain mass are only occasional fields of snow and ice— bodies 

 of a thousand or two feet long, usuallv quite narrow and lying 

 on the more shaded sides of the ravines. In nature and texture 

 tliey are quite similar to the true glacier ice, possessing m all 

 cases planes of stratification which indicate the pressure of the 

 lormerly overlying masses. There is little doubt that all the 

 scattered snowfields that, in the months of August and Septem- 

 ^>er, dapple the southern slopes, are the relics of glaciers. They 



