Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-01-21
GLACIERS ARR WANING.
VeAiGed by the Latest Evidence Coli
lected In All Parts of the
World

| World. 500
The French Alpine club appointed q
committee of scientific men two years
ago to collect annually the results OF
al the studies of glaciers made In every
cart of the world, and to prepare q
yearly report. The second report, states
the New York Sun, covering 1902, just
issued, presents a large amount OF evil
dence to show that throughout the
world the great majority of glaciers
are manifesting a constant tendency
to diminish in area.
Their lower ends are slowly retreat
ing further up the mountains. There
are exceptions to this rule in small
districts, but these exceptions only en-
phasize the prevailing tendency every
where, from the arctic to the antarctic
zones.
In the Alps, for example, the diminu-
ton of glaciation is everywhere NOTICE
able, excepting in the Oriental Alps
where the glaciers are now a little
longer and thicker than they were at
the beginning of the century. Through
out the Cordilleras OF the Andes the
glaciers are %retreating.
1t was reported last year that the
great glacier on the west side OF Mount
Sarmiento, near the south end OF South
Africa, which Darwin found in 1881 70
descend to the sea, is now separated
from the shore Dy a vigorous grown
of young timber. Albert Brun, who visit
ed some of the glaciers of Spitzbergen
last year, discovered that the present ter
minus of the great East Glacier in Re-
search bay is about 5000 feet back
of the moraine which it deposited at
some earlier period.
M. G. Engell has brought home evil
dence that the Jacobshavn glacier, n
of the largest in Greenland, has re-
treated about four miles from 1850 to
July, 1902. Mr.. Oyen reports that the
line of perpetual snow is now at a
higher altitude among the mountains
of Scandinavia than a few years ago,
and that the glaciers have diminished
in abnormal proportions.
This process has been going on in
Scandinavia for a very long time. In
many cases 1t is found that the present
glacier ends are now over 5000 feet
back of their examinations a century
ago, as is shown by the glacier records
which have been kept in that region
for about $50 years.
Among the Rocky mountains the
most notable recession OF glaciers was
that observed last year by Mr.. Femme
man, who found that the Arapanoe gla-
cier had been rapidly retiring for sew
eral years; and he attributes the fact
to a deficiency in snowfall in the past
four winters.
Variations in the size Of glaciers are,
of course, due to climatic variations;
and If glaciers are not so large as
they were, O few years or decades ago,
it is because the general weather con
ditions are moro temperate. To Illus
trate this topic, the committee on gla-
| ciers has collected in it's report a mass
| of the most curious and interesting tcs-
timony as to the severity of the win
! tiers in the sixteenth, seventeenth and
| eighteenth centuries.
According to this evidence, eight feet
] of snow fell in January. 1893, on the
| plain of Dauphine and upon the Au-
vergne mountains, and many of the
houses in the villages were completely
hidden from view. Heavy snowfall
was recorded IN France for six months
from November 2, 1913, to May, 1G14
The summers of 1918 and 1913 were
phenomenally cold in France. Ice
formed in rivers on June II and IL, 1915
and snow fell on the lower mountains or
August 1, 1918. Proof is given thai
these centuries in which remarkably
severe weather was recorded were pc
RODS OF large growth of glaciers.
The average weather condition!
throughout the world are now certain
ly more temperate than in those days
if the old records are true; and the an
nual means of temperature and precip-
itation are now conducive to the di'
intuition of glaciers.