Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-08-04
THE MUIR GLACIER.
ONE OF THE ALASKAN TRAVEL.
ING ICE MOUNTAINS.
AN Accurate Measurement of the
Frozen Observation-Disclosures of
the Alps Mere Piguies.

The following description of the Muir
glacier is from the Juneau City Mining
Record, Alaska This is the largest of the
five glaciers passed in trips by steamer up
the coast 1t enters the water at the head
of bay known as Muir inlet, which is
visited by steamers that steam close under
the face of the wall of ice. All about are
anchored and floating icebergs, while the
mountain scenery is of the most fascinating
character. The Mining Record says:
THE MUIR GLACIER.
The glacier enters the sea with a gigsntic
front two or three hundred feet above the
water and mile wide. Fancy a wall of
blue ice, splintered into columns, spires and
huge crystal masses. with grottoes, creyices
and recesses, higher than Bunker Hill mon
ument and mile in width 1t is u specta-
Gle that is strangely beautiful in its variety
of form and depth of color and at the same
time sight awe-inspiring. The ice noun
tain is almost constantly breaking to pieces
with sounds that resemble the discharge of
heavy guns or the reverberations of
| thunder. At times an almost deafening
report is heard, or a succession of them,
| like the belching of whole park of artil-
| lery, when no outward effect is SEEN 1t is
the breaking apart of great masses of ice
within the glacier. Then some huge berg
| topples over with n roar and gigantic
| splash that may heard several miles, the
waters being thrown aloft like smoke A
great pinnacle of ice is seen bobbing about
in wicked fashion, perchance turning a
somersault in the food before it settles
| down to battle for life with the sun and
| the elements on its seaward cruise. The
waves created by this terrible commotion
| even rock the steamer and wash the shores
miles away. There is scarcely five min
utes in the whole day or night without
some exhibition of this kind There are
mountains each side of the glacier, the
one upon the right, or south shore, being
| the highest. High up on the bare walls
are seen the scoriated and polished sur
| faces produced by glacial action. The
present glacier is retrograding quite rap
| idly, as may be seen by many evidences
of its former extent, as we'll as by
the concurrent testimony of earlier visit
ors. On either side is moraine half
mile in width, furrowed and slashed by
old glacial streams which have given place
in turn to others higher up the defle rs
the glacier recedeS. These moraines are
| composed OF earth and coarse gravel, with
occasional large bowlders On the north
side the material is more of a clayey sort,
at least in part, and the stumps of an an
cient forest have been uncovered by the
action of glacial river or overwhelmed
| by the icy flood. Some scientists claim
these forests are in reality pre-gIacial, and
many thousands of years old The in
terror of the great moraines is yet frozen,
and at the head of one Of the little rayines
| formed by the former glacial river dis
charges, a little stream still trickles forth
| from a diminutive ice cavern. Notwith-
standing the contiguity of the ice itself,
and the generally frigid surroundings,
| blue-bells and other flowers bloom on the
moraine. In the center of the glacier.
| some two miles from its snout, is a rocky
island, the top Of some ancient peak the
great mill of ice has not vet ground down
! 1t is interesting to see how the massive
| stream of ice conforms itself to its shores,
separating above the obstacle and reunit-
ing below. On approaching, or departing
| from Muir inlet, the yoyager may look
| back upon this literal sea of ice and fol-
low its streams up to the snow-felds of the
! White mountains, which form the back.
bone Of the peninsula between Glacier bay
and Lynn canal.
IT'S MEASUREMENT.
The following facts relating to the Muir
| glacier, Its measurement and movement
are derived wholly from Professor Wright's
notes: Roughly speaking, the Muir gla-
cIer may be said to occupy an amphithea-
ter which has the dimensions of about
| twenty-five miles from north to south, and
thirty miles from east TO west The OPEN
ing of this amphitheater at Muir inlet is
toward the south-southeast. 1t is two
miles across from the shoulder of one
mountain to the other at the outlet. Into
the amphitheater pour nine glaciers, and
the sub-branches that are visible make the
atfiuents more than twenty in number.
-Four OF the main branches come in from
the east, but these have nearly spent their
force on reaching the focus of the amphi-
theater. The first tributary from the
southwest also practically loses its
force before reaching the main cur
branches coming from the north
| htSt siuu lWO iIOHi lllt north. lie
motion is here much more rapid Obser-
vations made upon three portions of the
main glacier, respectively 500, 1000 and
l,500 yards from the front, howed the
movement to be l35 feet at the first point.
90 at the second, and rs at the third, per
day. The summit OF the lower point was
little over 300 feet above the water, the
second 400 feet and the third considerably
/ ,l.,l
rapidly decreases on approaching the me-
dial moraines brought down by the
branches from the east Along the line
moving parallel with that Of the greatest
motion, and half dozen miles from it, the
rate observed at two points was about 10
feet per day Thus we get an average
daily motion in the main channel of the
ice flow, near its mouth, of about 40 feet
across a section of one mile The hight
of the ice above the water in front, at the
extreme point, was found to be 226 feet
Back few hundred feet the hight is
little over 800 feet, and at quarter
of a mile 400 feet. A quarter of a mile
out in front of the glacier the water is So
fathoms, or $40 feet deep. Thus Professor
Wright estimates that body Of ice 735
feet deep, 5000 feet wide and l,200 feet
| iOhS fdsSSu OuS lulo tlS bd1 III lut tiulY
days he was there, this movement and dis
charge taking place at the rate of 149, ,O00,-
000 cubic feet per day. He says that after
the fall of large mass of ice from the
glacier into the bay, the beach near his
camp, two and one-half miles distant from
the glaciers, would be wrapped in foam by
the waves. One of many large masses he
saw floating about projected some GO feet
out of water, and was some 400 feet square.
Estimating the general hight of the berg
above the water TO be 80 feet, and its total
depth $50 feet, the contents of the mass
would be 40000,000 cubic feet
EUROPEAN GLACIERS MERE PYGMIEs.
The Swiss glaciers, it should be remem-
bered, are contracted affairs in comparison
with the Muir glacier, which is four times
as wide as the glacier selected by Tyndall
for his observations, and six times as large
as the whole surface of the Mount Blanc
glaciers. Professor Wright is of the opin-
ion that one of the other glaciers entering
Glacier Bay is much larger than the Muir.
From pinnacle of elevation overlooking
l al, c.