328 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



which of the many glacier systems we direct our attention ; 

 perhaps one of the best known is that which contributes to the 

 astonishing panorama unfolded before us from the Gorner Grat. 

 Dominating the scene is an array of majestic snowy peaks. On 

 the extreme left stands the mighty complex mass of Monte Rosa, 

 then the Bretthorn ; in front of us the Matterhorn rises in its 

 superb and isolated grandeur ; farther to the right come the 

 Dente Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Rothhorn ; and last, the 

 shapely Weisshorn, sometimes regarded as the most complete 

 realisation of the ideal of mountain beauty. 



Below lies a wide valley, filled deep with a mass of slowly 

 flowing ice, fed by many tributaries pouring down from the 

 broad snow-fields which sweep around and between the mountain 

 fastnesses. Two main streams — the Grenz and the Gorner 

 glaciers — unite on almost equal terms, and flow together as the 

 Boden glacier, which comes to an end at the upper margin of 

 the Hinter Wald, above Zermatt, where it melts away into the 

 hurrying Visp. 



Suppose now that by some magic wand we could wave 

 away all these streams of ice, and dismantle the mountains of 

 their snowy robes, leaving the rocks exposed and bare. A 

 strange and wonderful landscape would then stand revealed; 

 the valleys, as far up as the ice had filled them, would be 

 modelled in smooth and round and flowing outlines, in striking 

 contrast to the rugged forms of the frost-splintered mountain 

 summits. Angular fragments of rock, some of them very large 

 the remnants of the lateral moraine, would lie scattered over 

 the valley sides, marking the line where the glacier had lapped 

 against its banks ; and a heap of debris, confusedly piled 

 together, would stretch across the valley in a crescentic mound, 

 not completely continuous, and looking like the ruins of a great 

 natural dam. This is the terminal moraine, and marks the end 

 of the vanished glacier. Behind it we might see a basin-like 

 depression, in which the glacier had sunk itself by abrasion ', 

 within this, rising from its surface, elongated hummocks, or 

 drumlins, of boulder clay, arranged in divergent radiation, 

 conformably with the stream-lines of the glacier. 



When we have gazed on the desolate scene long enough to 

 distinguish its principal features, we will descend from our eyrie 

 and examine them more in detail. The smoothness of rounded 

 outline which we have already remarked is found to be due to 



