RECESSION OF THE ALPINE GLACIERS. 327 



glaciers and glacial phenomena is, almost everywhere, a thing of extremely 

 modern origin. And in farther pursuance of the same line of inquiry, 

 we shall make a brief statement of the nature of those very rapid changes 

 which occasionally take place, and to which certain well-known glaciers are 

 especially liable, although these changes evidently depend on very local 

 conditions, and, however interesting to those who are exposed to the often 

 most disastrous consequences of these misbehaving masses of ice, are by no 

 means of so mucli importance to us, from the point of view of the present 

 investigations, as those slower oscillations or changes which are due to the 

 agency of more general causes, and may therefore be expected to throw 

 light ou the problems with which we are occupied. 



One would suppose that so important a fact as the general recession, 

 during several successive decades, of the glaciers would, in the Alpine regions 

 at least, have excited the greatest possible interest, and that a large amoiint 

 of information, statistical and other, in regard to it would already have 

 become accumulated. Considering that the members of the various Alpine 

 Clubs, French, German, Austrian, and Italian, may be numbered by thou- 

 sands, it would seem as if facts of the kind here desired would have been 

 precisely those which would have been most zealously gathered. On exam- 

 ining the publications of tlie various clubs, however, the data are found to 

 be very meagre. The principal facts, however, can be given with sufficient 

 detail for our purpose, particularly as the present writer has had the advan- 

 tage of repeated visits to various portions of the Alps, during the last two 

 of which, in 1879 and 1881, his attention was specially directed to procuring 

 information in reu:ard to the condition of the <!;laciers as to advance or 

 recession, and particularly in the eastern portion of the range from the 

 Bernina Group eastward. 



The Alpine glacier group where the present recession has apparently 

 been most marked, and where it first began to be noticed, is that of Mont 

 Blanc. Here, too, the most complete records of the movements of the ice 

 have been kept, so that a pretty good idea of the general character of the 

 chani!;e can be o-athered.* 



* The record alluded to is that of M. Venance Payot, who in 1879 published a brochure entitled "Oscilla- 

 tions des Quatre Grands Glaciers de la Vallee de Chanionix," embracing the observations of thirt}' years. This 

 volume the present writer has not been able to ])rocure, but information su})plementary to that contained in this 

 work appears in the Annuaire du Club Al]iin Fran^ais for 18S0 (published in 1881 — the seventh of the series). 

 From this source and from various communications made by other Swiss geologists, the statements given in the 

 present section have been compiled. There is more or less discrepancy in the dates, as might be expected, but 

 the freneral facts are clearlv indicated. 



