44 



JOHN BURROUGHS 



could not have been dumped there from carts; it must 

 have been sifted out from some moving vehicle. 



Then you come 

 upon a broad band of 

 rocks and boulders, 

 several rods in width, 

 the margins perfectly 

 straight and even and 

 pointing away to the 

 distant mountains. 

 All these are medial 

 moraines — material 

 gathered from the 

 mountains against 



LARGE ROCK SUPPORTED ON COLUMN OF ICE, which the ice haS 

 MUIR GLACIER. . 



ground as it slowly 

 passed, and brought hither by its resistless onward flow. 

 Sometime it will all be dumped at the end of the glacier, 

 adding to those vast terminal moraines which form the 

 gravel plains that flank each side of the inlet. In looking 

 at these plains and ridges and catching glimpses of the 

 engulfed forests beneath them, one feels as if the moun- 

 tains must all have been ground down and used up in 

 supplying this world of material. But they have not. 

 Peak after peak still notches the sky there in the north 

 many thousand feet high. 



The western part of the Muir Glacier is dead, that is, it is 

 apparently motionless, and no longer discharges bergs from 

 its end. This end, covered with soil and boulders, tapers 

 down to the ground and is easily accessible. Only the lar- 

 ger more central portion flows and drops bergs into the sea, 

 presenting the phenomenon of a current flowing through a 

 pond, while on each side the water is all but motionless. 



Not very long ago the Muir had a large tributary on 

 the west, but owing to its retreating front this limb ap- 



