The Summits And
Connecting Ridges Are Mere Blades And Points, Ground Sharp By The
Glaciers That Descended On Both Sides To The Main Valleys.
From one
standpoint I counted nine of these glacial channels with their
moraines sweeping grandly out to the plains to deep sheer-walled neve-fountains at their heads, making a most vivid picture of the last days
of the Ice Period.
I have thus far directed attention only to the most recent and
appreciable of the phenomena; but it must be borne in mind that less
recent and less obvious traces of glacial action abound on ALL the
ranges throughout the entire basin, where the fine striae and grooves
have been obliterated, and most of the moraines have been washed away,
or so modified as to be no longer recognizable, and even the lakes and
meadows, so characteristic of glacial regions, have almost entirely
vanished. For there are other monuments, far more enduring than
these, remaining tens of thousands of years after the more perishable
records are lost. Such are the canyons, ridges, and peaks themselves,
the glacial peculiarities of whose trends and contours cannot be hid
from the eye of the skilled observer until changes have been wrought
upon them far more destructive than those to which these basin ranges
have yet been subjected.
It appears, therefore, that the last of the basin glaciers have but
recently vanished, and that the almost innumerable ranges trending
north and south between the Sierra and the Wahsatch Mountains were
loaded with glaciers that descended to the adjacent valleys during the
last glacial period, and that it is to this mighty host of ice streams
that all the more characteristic of the present features of these
mountain ranges are due.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 151 of 304
Words from 40460 to 40750
of 82482
