The scenery of these fiords is of the grand est description. From wall to wall they are en cumbered, often jammed with icebergs, which by the most active glaciers are discharged at intervals of a few minutes with thundering roaring that may be heard 5 to 10 miles away, proclaiming the restless work and power of these mighty crystal rivers, in striking contrast with the dead silence of those of the second order, though they also, except at their decay ing ends, are ceaselessly flowing and grinding.
Glacier Bay is the iciest of the inlets which fringe the coast. Both to the north and south of it the glaciers are generally less lavishly snow-fed, and of course give birth to fewer icebergs. Of its nine glaciers of the first order, the Muir is the largest. It is about 50 miles long, the main trunk below the confluence of the principal tributaries is about 25 miles wide and probably about 1,500 feet deep. The berg discharging part of the sea-wall is less than two miles wide, rises above the water to a height of 250 to 300 feet, and sinks to a depth of about 700 feet.
The grandest of the Prince William Sound glaciers are the Columbia, Barry, Harvard, Yale and Harriman. Some of the smallest of the noble company descend flowery mountain sides in the wildest and most imposing ice-cata racts.
Residual glaciers from a mile to 10 or 12 miles long, including neve, are distributed throughout the Rocky Mountain ranges from lat. 43° to 53°. The greater number lie between 50° and 52° 30' at the heads of the Saskatche wan, Athabasca and Columbia rivers. The largest groups are magnificent rags and patches of an ancient ice-sheet, some of them covering an area of 40 to nearly 100 square miles and sending down river-like glaciers six to eight miles long.
Glaciers of the third order abound on the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, the Scandi navian Peninsula, the Andes, the lofty snowy ranges of Asia and on the mountains of New Zealand.
More than 1,000 with an area of about 1,200 square miles have been surveyed and named in the Alps. The largest are river-like, 10 to 15 miles long, descend into the forests and ter minate at an elevation of 4,000 to 6,000 feet. Most of the smaller ones are like masses of pure snow, and terminate about 2,000 feet higher.
The Caucasus is perhaps about as heavily ice-laden as the Alps. Few of its glaciers are known to descend much lower than 6,000 and 7,000 feet. Those of the Pyrenees are compar atively small.
Many of the glaciers of Norway pour grandly down from extensive neve fields to within 1,000 feet of the sea-level. A few ap proach the shore and may rank as glaciers of the second order, while one, the only one in Europe of the first order, discharges into Jokul Fiord, near the 70th parallel. Between the larger glaciers flowing toward the heads of the fiords there are many hanging and cascading glaciers, ranged along the brows of plateaus, some of which pour over precipices in separate bergs with loud roaring like that of glaciers discharging into the sea. At the foot of the cliffs the battered fragmentt are welded by the accumulating weight and thus these wild ice streams, after their plunge through the air, are made whole again and flow quietly on their way as "regenerated glaciers," the space between their upper and lower parts being only a wider and more complete crevasse.
The low-descending New Zealand glaciers almost rival those of the Alps in size, while their beauty is greatly enhanced by the rich vegetation through which they flow.
The glaciers of South America are distrib uted along almost the whole extent of the Andes. According to Whymper those under the equator attain their greatest size on the snow-laden, storm-beaten summits of Antisana, Cayambe and Chimborazo. On Cayambe 12 glaciers of considerable size were counted, flow ing from the central neve reservoir, descending to about 15,000 feet above sea-level. To the south of lat. 46° many approach the sea.
On the lofty mountain chains of Asia, espe cially the snowy Himalaya, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Kuen-Lun and Thian-Shan, thousands of little known residual glaciers still exist. The largest which have been explored are the mag nificent Biafo and Baltoro Karakoram glaciers, 30 and 35 miles long, descending to about 11,500 and 12,000 feet.
. Excepting Australia, which seems to have lost all its glaciers, Africa is glacially the poor est of the continents. Its only known glaciers are those of the two great snowy mountains, Kenia and Killimanjara, near the equator.