RECESSION OF THE CAUCASIAN GLACIERS. 331 



Similar facts in regard to the recession of the glaciers of the Caucasus are 

 reported by various authors, and especially by Abich, the veteran explorer 

 of that range, who, in 1879, informed the present -writer that there could be 

 no doubt of the foct that a general recession was going on at that time. In 

 an article on the glaciers of the Caucasus published in 1877. Abich makes 

 the following statement, which is also valualjle as evidence with regard to 

 the diminution of the Alpine ice-masses: "A secular period of recession 

 [Riickzugsperiode] of the glaciers of the Caucasus, and first of those of its 

 western half, became evident, and seemed to resemble both in character and 

 amount the same phenomenon which has occasioned so much siu-prise within 

 the past fifteen years, in both the Eastern and Western Alps. In 1849 an 

 uncommon forward movement of the glaciers in the vicinity of Elburuz was 

 a noticeable fact. At that time I saw the glacier of the first order of magni- 

 tude in the Baksan Valley push forward its former terminal and lateral 



moraines, on which pine trees of a hundred years in age were growing 



At the same time a similar condition of advance was noticed in the Aletsch 

 glacier, tiie longest of all the ice-streams of Switzerland. The later occur- 

 ring and continuous recession of the Baksan glacier began to bo noticed 

 during the years from 1860 on. That all the glaciers from Elburuz east to 

 Kasbek have joined this receding movement, and that they all, including 

 those which belong to the mass of Elburuz itself, are still diminishing, I am 

 able to state positivel}^ because my 3early repeated excursions to the higher 

 parts of the northwestern region of the Caucasus gave me an opportunity to 

 make comparisons and measurements at the same points which I had visited 



many years before From my own observations, made in the years 



1807, 1872. and 1876, I had become aware of the constantly increasing body 

 of facts indicating recession which were displayed by the glaciers of the 

 Engadine, Mont Blanc, and the Bernese Oberland, and I was fully convinced 

 of the entire harmony in the Alps and Caucasus in respect to the phy.sical 

 character of the chan2;es connected with this recession. All the information 

 wdiich has been furnished since that time by competent observers confirms 

 the fact that the diminution of the glaciers is still going on in the Pyrenees 

 as well as in the Alps."* 



case ; all of them had diminished, and some had actually disappeared." Bulletin de la Soeiete Vaudoise des Sciences 

 Naturelles (2) Vol. XVII. pp. 4-22- 425. 



* Ueher die Lage der Schneegiiinze, und die Gletscher der Gegenwart im Kaukasus, von H. Abich. Melanges 

 Physiques et Chimiques, tires du Bulletin de I'Acadeniie des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, Tome X. pp. 643- 

 645. 



