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Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
90
all the melting snow & mud that has been repeatedly frozen & thawed & that extend in a nearly east & west direction been produced
There is much of the same on glaciers & snow above the gls [glaciers]. It glistens (this structure) with thin scales of ice 3 to 4 inches long.
[sketch: 21° 14° 8½° 22°; section showing curves of the surface of the Lyell glacier from its head to the terminal moraine. June 3d [third] 1973. The snow at this date was level with the top of the terminal moraine.]
Butterflies were flitting briskly over the glacier while we crossed it
Also other flies & beetles
Some of them were benumbed & lay on the surface dead & alive and the dun alpine sparrows were feeding on them
The black frisky ice fleas covered the snow in many places, a dozen or so to the square inch. They jumped from crystal to crystal, a distance of an inch sometimes when I breathed on them they seemed alarmed & vanished down between the snow granules in haste.
All sunburned. The Englishmen badly so.
91
The surface of the snow in the woods is pitted & scalloped where leaves cones & pine tassels have fallen & radiated or reflected heat. Pine tassels frequently in this way drill smooth cylindrical holes vertically into the snow or slanting forward against a hill slope by the directive action of the barbed leaves.
The [Williamson Spruces] Merten hemlocks are escaping one by one from their winter sleeping
Springing up & slowly [gaining] [unbending] to an erect posture. The pits where they have lain all winter with backs sorely bent are visible while the snow lasts. Some pines also & other conifers to some extent are buried in the same way while young. The constant strain on the branches throughout the winter & particularly in spring when the weight being removed from the trunk it springs up as far as the branches will allow, the strain coming on the branches alone thus pulling them to one side as we [we] see in many young trees.
Warm rosy light on the glaciers at sunset
Later purple & red down the valley
[sketch: bent here by tip first touching the snow, then settling farther.]
Date Occurred
1872-1874
Resource Identifier
MuirReel32 Notebook01 Img048.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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