594 
father of Dr. Pacard, of Chamouny, 
who first ascended Mont Blane, was 
drowned when crossing it to visit a 
patient. The road soon after turns to 
the east, and enters the valley of Cha- 
mouny, which is near twelve miles in 
length, and in most parts exceed a mile 
in breadth at the bottom, but, owing to 
the great height of the mountains which 
bound it on each side, the valley ap- 
pears much shorter and narrower. 
Pines and larches clothe the lower parts 
of the mountais, and give a sombre 
appearance to the western end of the 
valley, which is rendered Still more so 
by the unvaried snows of Mont Blanc, 
which hang over it; but, after passing 
the priory of Chamouny, the scene 
changes, and to this dreary magnificence 
succeeds a series of majestic pyramids 
or aguilles, of astonishing height, and 
too steep to admit the snow to rest 
upon them in any season. 
What constitute the chief interest of 
Chamouny, are the numerous glaciers 
which descend from Mont Blane and 
the mountains on the south, to the very 
bottom of the valley. No where in the 
Alps, are they of such magnitude, or 
approach so far into the regions of cul- 
tivation as bere; the glaciers in the 
Berneze Oberland are not to be com- 
pared with them, nor can any descrip- 
tion or graphic representation give an 
adequate idea of the scene. — 
Could we suppose a torrent, nearly a 
mile in breadth and several hundred 
feet in depth, to be descending down 
the side of a mountain, rolling waves 
over each otber, more than fifty feet in 
height, and the whole to be instantly 
consolidated and split into angular frag- 
ments on the surface, we might have a 
tolerably correct potion of a glacier, but 
without seeing it, we should still have 
but a feeble conception of the impres- 
sion that such an object would excite. 
The first glacier that descends low 
into the valley is called the Glacier de 
Boissons. The ice of this glacier is 
more pure and unsullied by the fall of 
earth and stones from the mountains 
above, than that of any of the others. 
Among the singular forms of the ice 
upon ‘its surtace, one resembled the 
steeple of a church. Our guide said it 
was about fifty feet in height; it had 
been observed fifteen months, and 
would probably fall down the following 
stimmer. 
Nothing respecting the glaciers is 
more extraordinary or better attested, 
than the progressive motion of these 
Bakewell’s Travels.in ihe Tarentaise, &c. 
cnormous masses of ice. In order to 
prove it, marks have been fixed on 
some of them. Our guide told me that 
the block of granite, ‘that bad fallen on 
the Mer de Glace, had been observed to 
move about three-quarters of a league 
in twenty years; hence the progressive 
motion of this glacier may be stated at 
ore hundred and eighty yards ina year. 
It will easily be coneeived, that a. mass 
of ice descending into a warm valley, 
would disappear in the course of time, 
and the valley would be free from ice 
did not other ice advance to supply its 
place. ‘The process may be thus briefly 
stated: the ‘glaciers are principally 
formed in the bigh mountain valleys im 
the Alps, the bottoms of which slope 
down towards the lower valleys. As 
the ice at the lower end of the glacier, 
which is exposed to a warm temperature 
is dissolved, the ice above, as it rests 
upon an inclined plane, is pressed for- 
ward by the force of gravity, and thus 
the whole is put in motion. By this 
motion, the ice is often rent with sur- 
prising noise. TFissures are made many 
feet or yards wide, and of vast depth, 
and the surface of the descending gla- 
cier is broken into irregular masses, that 
project a great height above the sur- 
face. A newly made. fissure may be 
known by the emerald colour of the ice. 
The ice of the glaciers is formed by the 
consolidation of the snows lodged in 
the mountain valleys: as the surlace of 
the snow thaws and percolates through 
the mass, it is again frozen, and acts as 
a cement, and by a repetition of this 
process, the whole mass is converted 
into solid ice; not so compact, bow- 
ever, as that of rivers or lakes, for it is 
full of air bubbles, owing to the mode of 
its formation. As the ice. descends 
from the higher into the lower valleys, 
there is a certain pvint at which the 
equilibrium between the two forces, 
heat and gravity, that act on the gla- 
cier, is established—the heat diminish- 
ing as much of the ice, as descends into 
the valley in a given time, the lower 
termination remains nearly stationary ; 
I say nearly, for after a series of cold 
seasons, the glaciers enlarge and ad- 
vance further into the valleys, and after 
a series of warm summers, they di- 
minish and recede; but, as far as ob- 
servations have been carried, we are 
warranted in the conclusion—that on 
the average of a great number of years, 
the quantity of ice and snow in the 
Alps remains the same. 
One day I walked round the bottom 
oO 
