COLUMBIA GLACIER 



NOTES ON THE PACIFIC COAST GLACIERS 



BY JOHN MUIR 



HE glaciers that load the mountains of the 

 Pacific Coast form a belt about two thousand 

 miles long, of which the south half is mostly 

 narrow and broken, the north continuous and 

 broad. 

 On the Sierra Nevada of California between latitudes 

 36 30' and 39 there are sixty-five small glaciers, distrib- 

 uted singly or in groups of three or four on the northern 

 slopes of the highest peaks at an elevation of 11,000 to 

 12,000 feet above the sea. These slow-flowing, ragged- 

 edged, residual masses, few of which are more than a mile 

 in length or width, are all that is left of the great glaciers 

 which once covered the Range. More than two-thirds of 

 their number lie between latitudes 37 and 38 and form the 

 highest fountains of the San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Merced, 

 and Owens rivers. Mt. Shasta, near the northern bound- 

 ary of the state, still supports a few shrinking remnants, 

 the largest of which is about two and a half miles long 

 and descends to within 9,000 feet of the level of the sea, 

 the lowest point reached by any glacier in California. 

 Northward along the Cascade Range through Oregon 



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