Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1890-01-07

and ice win be measured by the depth OF
tbe valley, and may be from one nunoreo
IN 6fteen hundred feet The glacier tef-
inmates where the melting power OF tne
heat below Ia balanced by tue suppy Oh
snow and ice from the realm OF colo ABOVE,
ana. of course. this glacial river viii alter
,,otelv advance and recede with the periodic
changes of the mean temperature. What
hoe already been SAID assumes that the
glacier ia In motion. The evidence Of this
ia tbe obseryed steady movement Of OBJ
;ects wing on the surface of the glacier.
Rut objects near the center arc seen TO ad-
vance more rapidly than those near lts
aides. which are retarded by friction with
its banks. Hence, we infer that the move
meut is not in mass, but molecular.
Various theories have been started 70 ac-
count for this motion. 1t has been SAID
that the weight of the snow above and De
hind the gla ier pushed it down the IN
cbned nlane on which it rests. Undoubted-
lv force of this kind must exist but II
that were oil, il would advance as SOLID
block, which is not the fact.
Again. Il has been contended that rains
and melting SHOWS percolatinR through the
substance Of the glacier, and then freezing,
pushed it forward by the force OF their ex-
mansion. But the glacier moves in winter
when ice does not melt and in summer
when it does not freeze
Another has affirmed that ice, though
brittle and seemingly unyielding, IS plastic
and gelatinous, and moves under pressure
Like asphaltum.
Tyndall and huxley rest later theory
upon an extended series of experiments and
observations. Ice crushed into granu-
lated state IL submitted to great pressure
will readily take any desired form and re-
turn to q solid and transparent condition.
So the glacier, pressed by its own incalcu-
liable weight against an unyielding surface,
is ground up and made to assume the struct-
ure of its channel, and to move forward
like vicious substance, and the very force
which grinds t. up restores 1t again to its
transparent state. f
We found the consistency Of the Mer de
Glace changed continually from the Seracs
to the Chapeau. The snow at the source
gradually took on granulated form, which
the French call neve, and as it advanced
downward to where it alternately melted
and froze it was transformed into blue
transparent ice.
Whenever the glacier leaps suddenly
downward in its track, it is broken up by its
own weight The lateral crevices are
caused by. the strain put upon the ice by the
UNEQUAL movement OF the sides and the
center Of the glacier, and as the cracks open
at right angles to the line Of greatest ten
sion they generally curve upward, the con-
vexity being up the stream. During the heat
Of the summer it is common thing to see
one or more brooks coursing along the sur
face Of the glacier and dropping into assures,
which they melt into the form of deep wells.
This water passes down to the bottom of the
glacier, and, mingling with the rock which
has been ground up by the friction between
the ice and its bed, issues at the lower end
in turbid stream, which being drunk by
the people produces the strong tendency to
the goiter so common in some of the can.
tons.
Moraines are produced by the falling Of
dirt and stones from the cliffs upon the
sides Of the glacier. These are called lateral
moraines but where two glaciers unite to
form third, as in the case of the Mer de
Glace, two lateral moraines combine and
form a large medal moralne. This material
is all borne on together as the glacier ad-
vances, and is dropped of at the lower end
forming the terminal moraine. These mo-
raines scattered over new England are the
evidences of former glacial action in this
part of the country
Sometimes a large, nat bowlder falling
upon the ice prevents it melting beneath,
and we have the phenomenon of an Ice
pillar