SUCCESS MAY BE ATTAINED. 261 



an open space is called a hole of water, in the language of 

 the whale hunters. 



In the works of writers who have described the Alps, 

 mention is made of extensive beds of ice occupying the 

 higher valleys among those mountains. Those are denomi- 

 nated glaciers, which appears to be an appropriate term. 

 Though remote from the subject in question, with regard 

 to distance, the introduction of the Alpine glaciers in 

 this place may be allowed, and the brevity of my observa- 

 tion will help to excuse the introduction. The Alps, on 

 account of their great elevation, are mostly covered with 

 snow, which in the summer months is dissolved, and 

 carried down to the valleys. The valleys are met with in 

 different elevations, for which reason the temperature of 

 those places is at all times different. The dissolved snow, 

 under such different degrees of temperature, must be, in 

 the more elevated valleys, converted into ice, which, in 

 turn, is again reduced to a fluid state as the atmosphere 

 becomes more heated ; and hence the origin of those many 

 streams, torrents, lakes and navigable rivers which derive 

 their tribute from Alpine sources. It is not, however, 

 always the case that the dissolved ice and snow can reach 

 the lower situations without diminution. Many of those 

 valleys are confined pits, the solid surrounding rocks 

 affording no outlet for the accumulated waters, which 



