ARE THEY CHANGING?

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 29, 3 August 1931, Page 5

ARE THEY CHANGING?

NEW ZEALAND GLACIERS

TASMAN SINKS .80 FEET

Among guides and others ivho have had a .great many years of experience of the mountains in the vicinity of Mount Cook it is :i common belief that in some manner inexplicable to them ■ tho world is very slowly . becoming warmer (states the Christchurch "Press"). This assumption is based on the knowledge that during a period of years tho main glaciers in tho ranges have all registered considerable falls in height and the terminal faces aro moving back. Tho forming of"many, new tributary glaciors,. too, is being watched with very considerable interest, and an interesting statement was made by Mr. Vie Williams, now chief guide at tho Hermitage, who has had years of guiding experience in the Southern Alps, and whoso climbing feats aro second to none in New Zealand. He stated that from early photographs and paintings and also records left by the pioneers it has been established that tho Tasman Glacier has sunk about 80ft in 45 years. The terminal face of the glacier has moved back up tho valley also, and, in the same number of years, the difference in the .old and presont length of this mighty ice stream is very considerable. This alteration in the situation of the terminal faces or many of tho glaciers has been" one of the most noticeable changes in tho mountains during the last ten years, Mr. Williams said. The Mueller Glacier Is receding even more rapidly than, the Tasman, and, as on the latter, the surface of the' glacier, instead of being level with the top of tho moraine as it once was, is now nearly 100 ft below it.! : GIANT ICE WAVES. "There is one very interesting fact about the speed with which glaciers move," added the guide.' "It varies very considerably from year to year. Some of them move quite rapidly, due to giant ice waves. The thing that I see to occount for this change of-move-ment and the waves which accompany that change are exceptional snow conditions during some winters. If we have several heavy winters in succession—two would be enough in the ordinary course of events—the snow seems to pack up, form tremendous cascades of ice, and sufficiently affect the pressure to accelerate lower movement. The giant forces of Nature concentrated as in the case of these mighty glaciers have to be seen to be believed. "There • are a lot of small glaciers smashing a path down the mountains, and new ones are seen forming during the passage of years. As a comparison, of spcods I would say that most of these small ones are coming down at the same rato as the larger onos are receding at their terminal faces. Heavy collections of snow at levels of 6000 to 7000 feet seem to be responsible for all the new small glaciers still-in the process of complete formation. The Stocking Glacier, which is. the most obvions-looking from the Hermitage itself^ is a._ splendid, example of the glaciers still forcing a way out to the moraine flats. "It has come down 150 yards in five years, and the heel of the stocking formation which earned the glacier its. name has changed considerably," Mr. Williams concluded.