Summary: | U. S. Measures Glacier Status Geological Survey Men Check on Movement of Yosemite Ice Fields. U. S. MEASURES GLACIER STATUS Geological Survey Men Check on Movement of Yosemite Ice Fields. From a camp at timber line below Lyell glacier, the largest in the Yosemite region, the glacier committee of the United States geological survey is making expeditions to take measurements of the advance or recession of Lyell, Dana, Maclure and Conness glaciers, remnants of the ice age. John Muir in 1872, in August, planted five stakes across Maclure glacier. In the following October he found that the displacement of different stakes ranged from 11 to 46 inches. Similar stakes were set in Lyell glacier by the survey three years ago and last year were recorded as having advanced an average of one-third of an inch a day. While Yosemite glaciers move only 10 feet a year, Alaska glaciers move as much as four feet a day. However, the Sierra glaciers are important as sources of water supply. Melting ice from Lyell glacier finds its way to Hetch-Hetchy and thence to water mains of San Francisco, while the Dana glaciers, on the east crest of the Sierra, are the remote source of water supply for Los Angeles.
|