River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1886-11-11

Wandering around near camp / was
struck with establishment at the great
size of the trees of the forest into
w.ich we had crept. Within twenty
feet of our campfire were two trees,
one of which measured twelve feet
seven inches and the other seventeen
feet in circumference at the height of
persons arm from the ground. The
latter had its thick, shaggy bark strip
ped off nearly to the ground, being a
dead tree, and thus losing much in its
measurement. About thirty yards
from camp was tree that gave TWEEN
| ty-one feet in circumference at about
six feet from the ground. The most
| astonishing part was that such forest
should be found actually surrounded
/ by ice ten TO twenty miles across in
every direction. OF course it is rea-
sonable to suppose that trees were here
before the ice, and that this forest
| probably once connected with the for
ests OF the great fiat lands Here was
undOubted evidence that this small
| forest was being obllterated rapidly by
the advancing front of the Guyot gla-
cier. the fOot-ice grinding the huge
trees into pulp and splinters as surely
as quartZ-crusher grinds the rock in
| TO pc der Trees five and six feet
! through were bent over aud splintered
as if they were brush. while some of
the fallen trunks were split longitud-
inally into perfect kindling-wOod. 1t
was the mills of the gods grinding
ssrl.r otn No,
so very slowly, either. as one could see
by comparing them with other glacial
action near by. But little way off,
probably q half-miIe to a mile away.
was small clump of woods, into
which the glacier in the past had pro-
trHded, as shown by the fallen, shat
tered trunks that lay near the edge of
a small moraine, from which the gla-
cier had now retreated a great num-
Der Of rods.
Out from the bristling line of shat
tered tree trunks piled over each other
for nearly or fully hundred yards all
the spruce trees were dead but still
standing, their whitened trunks aud
| long, gaunt limbs contrasting strangely
and cOnspicuously with the trees still
covered with foliage that formed their
background. These dead evergreens
had been actually killed by their prox-
unity to the ice without its touching
them, either by its chilling influence,
kept up throughout the year for pro-
badly centuries, or the constant appli-
cation of the ice water about their roots
preventing their growth, for along
this foot-ice there was always a marshy
stream of ice-water draining off to the
nearest muddy creek or rill This is
true of the glacier foot not over fifty
yards from our camp in the forest. for
here we got our water for cooking pur-
poses, but here, also, the ice OF the
glacier had evidently come forward so
fast that the trees were rather killed
by direct crushing of their trunks and
limbs than by the slower one of the in
fluence of great masses of ice near by,
and it was possible 10 sit down ON this
foot-ice of the Guyot glacier. probably
ten to twenty feet thick ut this point,
and at the same time be under the
shade of huge evergreen tree. if
person desired two such cooling inlluen-
ces at the same time. Thus
came to the conclusion that the front
of this great glacier was like the fin
gers of some huge radiating animal
prolonging themselves outward and
retracting again at long intervals,
that would require many human lives
one after the other to measure a single
stride and its backward flow.-Freder-
ick SchlCdtkd ia NeW York Times.