THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 25 
above makes it quite possible that in the “Ice age” 
(Glacial Epoch, as the big-word-mongers call it) 
there was above that cliff a great nevé, or snowfield, 
such as you have seen often in the Alps at the 
head of each glacier. Over the face of this cliff a 
glacier has crawled down from that nevé, polishing 
the face of the rock in its descent: but the snow, 
having no large and deep outlet, has not slid down 
in a sufficient stream to reach the vale below, and 
form a glacier of the first order; and has therefore 
stopped short on the other side of the lake, as a 
glacier of the second order, which ends in an ice- 
cliff hanging high up on the mountain side, and 
kept from further progress by daily melting. If 
you have ever gone up the Mer de Glace to the 
Tacul, you saw a magnificent specimen of this 
sort on your right hand, just opposite the Tacul, 
in the Glacier de Trélaporte, which comes down 
from the Aiguille de Charmoz. 
This explains our pebble-ridge. The stones which 
the glacier rubbed off the cliff beneath it it carried 
forward, slowly but surely, till they saw the light 
