The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-02-28
GLACIERS.
PECULIARITlES OF THESE VAST
MASSES OF ICE.
Glaciers Not Infrequently 40C } Feet
Thick-Animals Preserved Thou
sands Of Years-How Gla-
ciers Are Formed.

account, Manhattan Island
& and the neighboring country
lay underneath hugh glacier. 1t has
been suggested that the condition OF
Alaska to-day corresponds largely with
that of this vicinity as it was just pre-
vious to the beginning of recorded
history. Ten thousand years is only
brief interval in time and in the
record of the earth's career, yet it
would wipe out all that is most inspir-
ing, aud that has come down to us Of
value in the records of man. The
study of the glaciers within few
years has accumulated a wide range
of knowledge relating to them. Re-
cent Investigations indicate that the
thickness of these vast ice fields has
been generally underestimated. They
are not infrequently 5000 to 1000 feet
thick, and often they are over 5000
feet, or a mile or more in depth.
The peculiarities under which the
glaciers existed, or III which, in some
instances, they continue to exist, af-
ford scope for endless inquiry. Thus,
in the debris and the haf-melted ice,
are frequently found animal remains
preserved by this natural refrigerating
process for many thousands of years. +,
In Northern Siberia, the settler, dig
ging though the earth for water,
comes upon unmelted glaciers, and.
in some instances, these glaciers are
still found beneath thick beds of Lava
that have flowed above and cooled
upon them. The climatic conditions
requisite for forming glacier are that
more ice should be produced each
year than is melted away. It then
continues to swell from year to year,
rising in the valleys above the sur
rounding hills, which act as dams to
hedge it in and hold it. ALI the while
vast quantities are melting and run
ming away in swift. icy torrents, scour.
ing out the valleys, cutting down the
hillsides, and carrying away the ui,-
dersupport of the vast mass whose
pressure continues to urge it forward
to fill the vacuum. The course OF the
streams which issue from the glacier
is that necessary to find their level,
and they point the route of the ice it.
self, which, under the slow, tremend. !
GUS pressure, becomes of plastic, fluid
nature.
; A small surplus from year to! year in
q period of continuous cold, soon leads
to an enormous development Of the
ice field. It flows over the smaller
hills, and if the mass reaches level
plain, it continues to pile up it's sur.
plus until that mass has reached q
height of thousands of feet, and pro-
duced for itself the necessary slope for
continuous movement. Thus from CEN
tury to century the glacier continues
to form and creep onward, until 1t
reaches its terminus in warmer local
ity, where it is melted more rapidly
than the ice is formed. The tremen-
dous pressure which results from q
vast mass of ice thousands of feet In
thickness, and extending for hundreds
of miles, is one of the causes also to
which geologists have attributed the
changes in the contour of the earth.
The weight has, it is believed, gradu.
ally brought about depression in the
earth's surface. This has led to
modification in the climates. and the
terminal of the glacier has receded,
leaving once more the territory that it
covered fertile and productive area.
If this theory should be correct, the
time may come when Alsaka itself,
now a remote and austere climate, may
become the seat of dense and pros
porous population. Such change
will not be greater than the difference
that exists between the Europe of to.
day, and that country as it was known
to the civilized world previous to the
Christian era.-H. S. Fuller, in School