The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1923-07-16
TO TEST MENACE
OF NEW ice ACE
Macmillan Expedition Will Study
Recent Movements of GIa-
CierS in Greenland.

New York.-Is another Ice agt
coming? Are the scenes of the latter
P~leistocene age-the geologic period
which Immediately preceded our owl
Ito be repeated? And, If so, what
will it mean to the inhabitants of the
earth?
In an effort to determine whether
there is any likelihood of such a cata,
clysmic occurrence the Macmillan ex.
petition recently left for Greenland
to study the recent movements of gla-
ciers on that island continent. The
great Ice age ended, according to
scientists, about 25,OOO years ago, but
the Ice has left it's footprints, by
which its advances and retreats and
movements may be traced.
During the Ice age, or the Glacial
period, there was a marked lowering
of temperature over the whole earth.
and 100000 or 100000 square
miles of the globes surface became
entirely covered with ice. Half the
region thus covered lay in North
America more than half the remain
der lay in Europe. But far away,
even to the tropical forests Of India
and the mountains of Asia, glaciation
occurred where there had been no ice
previous to the Ice age. On noun
tains which now bear burdens of con-
tinual snow and ice the n line de-
scended 5000 feet lower than 1t Is at
present.
Human Beings Succumbed.
Imagine great sheets of ice and
hard-packed snow creeping ever so
slowly but surely over the temperate
areas of Europe and America, and
imparting to them an Arctic cold to
which many of those early human be-
ings, who in their savagery were little
better than beasts, succumbed. These
mighty layers of ice, miles and miles
in thickness, spread over rivers and
mountains and plains, filling up the val
leys and the lakes and the seas. In
Europe the ice moved forth from the
Scandinavian highlands and buried
the lowlands of Belgium, Russia, Den
mark, Germany and Holland; and
then, crossing the North sea, touched
the shores of Britain. Besides these
great continental ice sheets, large in
dividual glaciers formed in the val
leys of the Alps and spread out in all
directions. Separate glaciers joined
on the plains of France and Italy and
in the Rhine and Danube valleys.
-Four times the enormous sheets of
ice advanced and covered the land.
Four times they r~etreated after I'M
centuries, each time leaving
terminal moraine of h~oulders. earth
and other debris which serves as an
of the route of the Ice on
its advance southwark. The second of
four glacial advances brought
he Ice farther south. In North Amer
ca the terminal moraine of the ice
,an still he observed, and followed. in
4 roughly correct line, over Long
Island through the town of Jamaica,
IS far south as Perth Amboy, N. ].
The line then runs in a northwesterly
direction through a point where the
own of Morristown is now located.
The smooth. low plains of the upper
MISSISSIPPI valley were covered with
ce, while the Ohio and Missouri rivers
1--WE their beginning to the glacial adj
-ances of the Ice age.
Leaves It's Mark.
Not only by the terminal moraines,
which Indicate the extent of the vari-
JUS ice advances, can tile route of gla-
be read. The passage of ice
'ver the hard, rocky floor of the earth
a peculiar kind of marking.
erosion, due to the work of gla-
iers and ice sheets. is of a smooth,
nature impaired to the rocks
contrasts decidedly with the
innacled, irregular surfaces which
re the work of ordinary weathering.
The whole of the enormous island
f Greenland is covered with an ice
ap or ice sheet which. pressing down
nder the weight of accumulated snow
f centuries. imparts q gradual move
lent to the various glaciers along its
dyes.
There is great doubt in the minds
f many scientists as to what the find
Igs of the Macmillan expeditions ex-
nination will Indicate.