Glaciers.

• Main Author: New York, Chicago: The Americana Company
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1904
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; pamphlets; journal articles; speeches; writing; annotation; Bear Glacier; Bonney; Greenland; glacier; glaciers; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/283; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmb/article/1282/viewcontent/249.pdf

GLACIER BEAR —GLACIER Dawson, 'Canadian Ice Age (1894) Bonney, United States Geological Survey, Monograph XXV. .See Boulder Clay Columbian Formation Diluvium, Champlain Stage; Drift; Drum- lin Till. Samuel Sanford, Engineering and Mining Journal. Glacier Bear, a small gray or "blue9 bear (Ursus emmonsi) of the St. Elias Alps, Alaska. See Bears. Glacier, a current of ice derived from snow. Water, changed into vapor by sun-heat and carried by the winds over frosty highlands, is crystallized into snow. Glaciers take their rise in regions which lie above the snow-line. Upon these regions, from their geographical position and elevation, the quantity of snow that falls exceeds the quantity melted and evaporated. The surplus, instead of accumulating indefinitely, is changed by the pressure of its weight into ice, which, though hard and apparently as brittle and inflexible as glass, flows down toward the sea in beautiful swaying undulating lines, as if soft like honey or tar. Thus the overburdened regions above the snow-line are relieved and a continuous circulation is maintained,— ocean water flying away through the air in the form of vapor, but in returning creeping along the ground in the form of ice, grinding and crushing the rocks that lie in its way, and leaving a heavier track than anything else that moves on the face of the earth. In general a glacier flows like a river, and drains off snow as a river drains off rain. At different places it moves at different rates, not only along its cross-sections, but along its length and from surface to bottom, as friction and the declivity of its bed varies. The velocity of the swiftest parts of the largest glaciers of the Alps is about from one foot to three feet per day; of the smallest, about as many inches. The lower central part of the Muir Glacier of Alaska flows about 10 feet a day. Some of the Greenland glaciers are said to flow much faster. Glacier motion, however slow, is continuous. It is less in winter than in summer, and slightly less in frosty nights ...