CHAPTER II


THE GLACIERS

Of the small residual glaciers mentioned in the preceding chapter, I
have found sixty-five in that portion of the range lying between
latitude 36° 30' and 39°. They occur singly or in small groups on the
north sides of the peaks of the High Sierra, sheltered beneath broad
frosty shadows, in amphitheaters of their own making, where the snow,
shooting down from the surrounding heights in avalanches, is most
abundant. Over two thirds of the entire number lie between latitude 37°
and 38°, and form the highest fountains of the San Joaquin, Merced,
Tuolumne, and Owen's rivers.

The glaciers of Switzerland, like those of the Sierra, are mere wasting
remnants of mighty ice-floods that once filled the great valleys and
poured into the sea. So, also, are those of Norway, Asia, and South
America. Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still cover
Greenland, Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska,
and the south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every glacier
in the world is smaller than it once was. All the world is growing
warmer, or the crop of snow-flowers is diminishing. But in contemplating
the condition of the glaciers of the world, we must bear in mind while
trying to account for the changes going on that the same sunshine that
wastes them builds them. Every glacier records the expenditure of an
enormous amount of sun-heat in lifting the vapor for the snow of which
it is made from the ocean to the mountains, as Tyndall strikingly shows.