The Opelousas courier., 1893-01-14
A MOVING ICE MOUNTAIN.
AIN IMMENSE GLACIER EtscoY.
Erred IN CALIFORNIA,

Anoss Il h,malayas, can be added to
sne local category of stupendous works
IN the economy of nature to be found in
sub-tropical California.
The story of the existence OF a MOVING
river OF ice buried in the deep canyons
OF the San Rernardino range Of mount
ans IS an old ore, and among eatlier set.
tiers IN this section it has been handed
aoWn as q tradition. Among MANY Of
the older residents Of sat Bernardino
County the existence Of a great ice
gorge upon tbs upper levels of Grayback
Mountain-the monarch of the San Ber-
hardlno range-has been known and
voufhed for during the past thirty years,
and yet not generally credited,
The frequent;iteration Of these stories
prompted the Los Angeles Herald to
make an exhaustive investigation as to
their truth, and with this aim an expe.
dition was organized. At Highland
Station they boarded the Bear Valley
stage and made the first mountain por-
ton of the Journey through a wild and
ruggedly beautiful section of the coun-
try to Pine Lake, where a halt was made
at the Bear Valley Hotel to procure mus
tangs and burros. A start was made at
. O'Clock the next morning, and a climb
OF 5000 feet was made to the summit of
the range south of Pine Lake, the ane-
roid barometer here showing an eleva.
ton of 1921 feet.
At an altitude of 10, 900 feet a grass
covered plateau half a mile wide was
crossed, and then the party turned into
a canyon that apparently seemed impas.
sable, but a thread-like trail wound in
and out the rugged and forbidding
mountain sides.
As the party proceeded up the canyon
the masses of snow along the sides and
in the old torrent I'D became mere fire.
quent, and at many points it had drifted
into great banks twenty, thirty and fifty
feet in depth, AS the ascent continued the
trees were mostly stunted and dwarfed
in growth, while the snow covered
nearly the entire surface and shone with
dazzling brightness. At $4,000 feet
the timber line was reached. The ascent
was now up a steep incline, and on either
side were great ~ravines or gulches that
extended upwards for hundreds of feet
to points near the summit. The climb
was over small powders that rolled
downward from under the feet. Three
r~avines, oblong in shape, half a mile in
length and about an eighth of a mile in
width, were filled full of snow. The
ravines ran into a canyon that wound
spirally downward, trending in a south
erly direction.
Although these great assures in many
respects resemble headstones of glaciers,
still they were not of sufficient dimen-
sions to indicate a permanent existence,
and the party followed the trend of these
rayines in a ~southeriy direction and
crossing a ridge projecting from the
main body of the mountain fully 1000
feet thy came to the main gorge, which
extended from the summit downward
for fully two and a quarter miles. This
gorge was wedge shaped, much like an
immense V reversed. 1t was fully an
eighth of a mile in width at the summit
and gradually widened to three-quarters
of mile at the base. The snow at the
crest of the gorge at "the top of the
mountain lay in strata, there being one
deposit in an immense cup-like assure
hundreds of feet in depth. On one side
of this tissure the strata are sharply de-
fined, each representing the accumulation
of a single year, the lowest and most
dense approaching the blue color OF Ice.
About half a mile downward from the
summit the three gorges heretofore de-
scribed as containing immense deposits
Of snosIs center in one common channel
and debouch into the main gorge, At
the point of iuncture there were indlca-
tions that at some long-past period the
smaller channel had been an active
glacier. Both sides of the main gorge
were observed closely. and investigation
revealed the existence of lateral moraines
formed of earthly matter which had been
detached from the mountain sides and
fallen upon the surface of moving snow
and ice. The party turned their faces
again toward the great gorge which fell
away at their feet, and then began what
proved to be an exceedingly perilous
descent. They managed to reach a
point near the base OF the glacier. Here
the mighty forces of Nature which had
been working untold years had piled up
a cross moralne of immense rock whose
sharp and angular edges projected from
the mass of snow and ice, some OF them
fully twenty feet in breadth and equally
high. The base line which Is at an Gle
walton OF 10, 1000 feet was mainly com.
posed of snow, but at points thus had
drifted or msiteS away, and the ice was
exposed. A stick of giant powder was
placed in a crevice and exploded, and
immense fragments of ice aud stone
torn away, revpling ancient ice of a
dark blue color almost verging into black.
Tasting fragments of this old ice they
were found to be bitter, and permeated
with a fine silt-iike sand. The stone
found in the cross noraine of the glacier
included porphyry, granite, pure white
quartz, petrited wood and limestone,
furrowed and scratched as it with
| graver's tools and blocks OF marble as
clear as any ever qusrried in any country.
There was a small flow of water from
the base Of the pass. Judging from the
contour Of the gorge there must be a
mass of ice fully a mile in length and
200 feet in depth, il not more.
An interesting point is the question OF
the movement of the glacier, and from
corolIary circumstances il was computed
that the mass was moving downward
into the valley at the rate of forty-seven
saA4 - annam IL mt more. and il is