Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-01-27
GLACIERS ARE WANING.
Verified BY the Latest Evidence Col.
lected in All Parts of the
World.

Verified by the Latest Evidence COL
lected in All Parts of the
World.
The French Alpine club appointed d
committee of scientific men two years
ago to collect annually the results of
all the studies of glaciers made in every
part OF the world, and to prepare q
yearly report. The second report, states
the New York Sun, covering 1902, just
issued, presents 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 1886 to
descend to the sea, is now separated
from the shore Dy vigorous growth
of young timber. Albert Brun, who visit
ed some of the glaciers O: Spitzbergen
last year, discovered that the present ter
minus of the great East Glacier in Re-
search bay is now about $500 feet back
of the moraine which it deposited at
some earlier period.
/ M. c. Engell has brought home EVIL
dence that the Jacobshavn glacier, one
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 few years ago,
and that the glaciers have diminished
in abnormal proportions.
This process has been going on in
Scandinavia for 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 Arapahoe gla-
cier had been rapidly retiring for sew
eral years; and he attributes the fact
to deficiency in snowfall in the past
four winters.
Variations in the size of glaciers are,
of course, due to climatic variations;
and ii glaciers are not now so large as
they were, few years or decades ago,
it is because the general weather con-
ditions are more temperate. To illus
trate this topic, the committee on g1a-
ciers has collected in it's report a mass
of the most curious and interesting tes-
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, 1898, 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, 1914.
The summers of 1915 and 1913 were
phenomenally cold in France Ice
formed in rivers on June II and II, 1915,
and snow fell on the lower mountains on
August /, 1913. Proof is given that
these centuries in which remarkably
severe weather was recorded were pc
! RODS of large growth of glaciers.
The average weather conditions
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-
minutiOn of glaciers.