IN THE BLUE ICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 275, 20 November 1935, Page 6

IN THE BLUE ICE.

MOVEMENT OF GLACIERS. (By J.C.) The disappearance of the AVcsUand alpino guide, Tom Christie, in a crevaesc on the Fox Glacier means the entombment of his body in tho depths of the ice for many years to come. It may be twenty years or a century, but it will iiot be for ever, for sooner or later the glacier gives up its dead. It depends on the degree of steepness of the glacier and the rate, at which the Jce moves in the -progress from the great neve, or collecting basin, near the summit of the main alpine range. The Fox Glacier, like the Fran/. Josef, moves at a very much faster rate than the Tasman and other glaciers on the opposite side oE the Divide. They descend about a thousand feet in the mile;'the lower part of the course is the steepest part of the great incline. The rate of movement of glacier has been investigated to some extent on both sides of the Alps by surveyors, but a systematic, continued series "of observations has yet to be taken. This etudy is particularly important on the West Coast glaciers, which are subject to periodical waves of advance and retreat. It has been , 'ascertained so far that periods ot advance of the terminal faces of those glaciers follow unusually heavy accumulations of snow and ice in the heart of the Alps ten thousand feet above sea level. All parts of a glacier do not move at the same rate. Investigations in the Swiss Alps many years ago showed that the ice moved more rapidly deep in the interior of the glacier than at the surface. Forty years ago Mr. A. P. Harper (now of Wellington) and the late Mr. Charles E. Douglas, of Westland, when carrying _ out Government exploration, work in the glaciated regions of Westland, took a series of measurements to ascertain the rate of movement of the. Franz Josef, and found that the ice in some parts moved ae much as fifteen feet in a day, a very high rate of travel indeed for a glacier. Mr. Harper later came to the conclusion that an exceptional push forward and downward which began high up in the heart of the Alps would make itself manifest at the face approximately thirty years later. On the eastern slope of the Alps a Government surveyor found in 1800 that the Tasman Glacier's movement was very slow at the terminal face, only two or three inches per day, and that the fastest rates were from nine to eighteen inches pet day; this was near the foot of the Ball .Glacier, which flows down into the Tasman. The ice of the Muclla Glacier, he calculated, moved at the rate of a mile in twenty-six years.

In the Swiss" Alps calculations have been made, after casualties there euch as that which has just occurred on the Fox Glacier, which fixed fairly closely the period which would elupse before the remains of victims emerged at the terminal face. Calculations of distance and rate of movement could similarly be made at the Fox. Accidents at Crevasses. Serious accidents through dropping into crevasses are very rare in our Xew Zealand alpine annals. The worst disaster which lias occurred here was on the Xasinan Glacier in January, 1930, when four young women and a young man who had Been visiting the Maltc Brun hut perished in a sudden blizzard oil their way clown the glacier to tlie Ball Iliitt :ind the Hermitage. Their deaths were solely due to exposure and cold, not to any mishap in the ice. Accidents at crevasses arc most likely to occur when the narrow rift in the ice is temporarily covered with a snow bridge, which, being uniform with the rest of the snow-covered, surface, looks safe enough until the alpinist puts his weight on it. In this Fox Glacier fatality the guide apparently saw the ercvasse and tried .to jump it, but failed to hind safely on the other side, though he evidently made a desperate effort to save himself. Sometimes a climber on a rope with a party bus frone through a snow bridge, but tho precaution of has saved him. These crevasses, and the moulins or well-like openings through which surface sii earns drop down into the glacier are mysterious sights when you peer down into their depth. Von are on the blue ice. so te.'inecl because .every shadow and every rift Quivers with an exquisite mystic blue, a more entrancing blue than ever is seen in sea or sky. Into some of the deep nionlins (|iiite large surface mulcts disappear. With the aid of rope mid ice axe one can descend into sonic of the upper and wide parts of these wonderful wells, like geyser pipes. leading to the sub-glacial river. The sides of the icy funnels are worn quite smooth. The orevnsses are rougher, and there arc often ledges which would prevent a body from dropping to the ultimate depths of the great ice stream.