Alaska. Its Mines and Other Resources, Described in a Lecture at Handel and Hayden Hall, by Prof. John Muir.

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1880
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; pamphlets; journal articles; speeches; writing; annotation; glaciers; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/656; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmb/article/1655/viewcontent/A4.pdf

ALASKA. ltn Mines and Other Kesourceii, Described tn a Lecture at Handel and Haydn Hall, «>y Prof. John. Itlutr. Notwithstanding bad weather, the announcement of a lecture on the mines and resources of Alaska, by Prof. John Muir, drew a large andience to Handel and Haydn hall last night, among those present several being ladies. The lecturer started out by showing the important part which glaciers perform in exposing the veins of mineral which are con tained in the earth's crust, not by sinking shafts, but in eroding the mountains, wearing them away and laying bare the different strata, Other agencies, as atmospheric infiu- encies, drops of rain and torrents of water are continually making changes in the conformation of the surface of the earth, but none are so powerful as the immense mantle of ice which moves on and on forever, grinding way the mountains by its great weight, often equal to more than 100 tons to the square foot, The entire west coast of the American continent, from N. lat. 35 to Sitka, shows glacial action in an unmistakable manner. This whole region was once covered with a vast sheet or mantle of ice without any signs of animal or vegetable life. In the onward roll of ages the long winter began to break and the summer succeeding the glacial period to come on. It came slowly but steadily, and the ice fields began to melt and to move, first disappearing from the valleys, then from the sunny sides of the hills and mountains, until now of the sixty-five glaciers in California all are found on the shaded sides of the mountains. These glaciers in their movements wear off the material of the mountains and, grinding it up, the particles are carried down by the water to the bottoms of the canyons, and that not taken to the ocean and lost to man is deposited along the river in placers. The movement of the glaciers is so slow as lo he almost imperceptible, some of those in the Sierras going at a rate not exceeding one mile in 500 years. The speaker's description of the region of country embracing the ...