IN CLOUDS AJSTD RIVERS, ICE AND GLACIERS. 



place where we enter upon it. This is the 

 celebrated Jardin, of which you have often 

 bear!. The upper part of the Jardin is bare 

 rock. Close at hand is one of the noblest 

 prvik.s in this portion of the Alps, the Ai- 

 guille Vorie. It is between thirteen and 

 fourteen thousand feet high, and down its 

 sides, after freshly- fallen snow, avalanches 

 incessantly thunder. From one of its pro- 

 jf-ctions a *tieak of moraine starts down the 

 Talc f re ; from the Jardin also a similar streak 

 of moraine issues. Both continue side by side 

 to the top of the ice-fall, where they are en- 

 gulfed in the chasms. But at the bottom of 

 the fall they reappear, as if newly emerging 

 from the body of the glacier, and afterward 

 they continue along tin-; Mer de Glace. 



13G. Walk with me now alongside the mo- 

 raine from the Jardin down toward the ice- 

 fall. For a time our work is easy, such fis- 

 sures as appear offeiing no impediment to 

 our march. But the crevasses become grad- 

 ually wider and wilder, following each other 

 at length so rapidly as to leave merely walls 

 of ice between them. Here perfect steadi- 

 ness of foot is necessary a slip would be 

 death. We look toward the fall, and ob- 

 serve the confusion of walls and blocks and 

 chasms below us increasing. At length pru- 

 dence and reason, cry "Halt!" We may 

 swerve to ihe light or to the left, and mak- 

 ing our way along crests of ice, with chasms 

 on both hands, reach either the right lateral 

 moraine or the left lateial moraine of the 

 glacier. 



18. FIRST QUESTIONS REGARDING GLA- 

 CIER MOTION. DUIFTISG OF BODIES 

 BURIED ix A CREVASSE. 



137. But what arc these lateral moraines? 

 As you and I go from day to day along the 

 efaeiers, their origin is gradually made plain. 

 We see at intervals the stones and rubbish 

 descending from the mountain-sides and ar- 

 rested by the ice. All along the fringe of 

 the glacier the stones and rubbish fall, and it 

 soon becomes evident that we have here the 

 source of the lateral moraines. 



138. But how are the medial moraines to 

 be accounted for? How does the debris 

 range itself upon the glacier in stripes some 

 hundreds of yards from its edge, leaving the 

 space between them and the edge clear of 

 rubbish ? Some have supposed the stones to 

 have rolled over the glacier from the sides, 

 but the supposition will not bear examina- 

 tion. Call to mind now our reasoning re- 

 garding the excess of snow which falls above 

 the snow-line, and our subsequent question, 

 How is the snow disposed of ? Can it be that 

 the entire mass is moving slowly down- 

 ward ? If so, the lateral moraines would be 

 carried along by the ice on which they rest, 

 and when two branch glaciers unite they 

 would lay their adjacent lateral moraines to- 

 gether to* form a medial moraine upon tha 

 trunk glacier. 



139. There is, in fact, no way that we c:in 

 *ee of disposi.ig of the excess of snow above 

 the snow-line ; there is no way of making 



good the constant waste of the ice below the 

 snow-line ; there is no way of accounting for 

 the medial moraines of the glacier, but by 

 supposing that from the highest snow-fields 

 of the Col -In G6ant, the Lechaud, and the 

 Talefre, to the extreme end of the Glacier des 

 Bois, the whob mass of frozen matter i.s 

 moving downward. 



140. If you were older, it wouM give me 

 Treasure to take you up Mont Blanc. Stait- 

 Jig from Chamouai, we shoukl first pass 

 through woods au I pastures, then up tha 

 steep hill-face with tlie Glacier des Bossons 

 to our right, t.-> a rock known as the Pierre 

 Pointae ; thence to a higher rock called th 

 Pierre Vfichelle, because here a- la-Uer is 

 usually placed to assist iu crossing the chasms 

 of the glacier. At the Pierre ]'Echlle we- 

 should strike tin ice, and passing under the 

 Aiguille du Mi li, which towers to the Icjft, 

 and wh'ch sonrrJmes sweeps a portion of 

 the track with stone avalanches, we should 

 cross the Glacier des Bossons ; amid heaped- 

 up mounds and broken towers of ice ; up 

 steep slopes ; over chasms so deep that their 

 bottoms are hid in darkness. 



141. \Ve reach the rocks of the Grands 

 Mulets, which form a kind of barren islet in 

 the icy sea ; thence to the higher-snow -fields, 

 crossing the Petit Plateau, which we should 

 find cumbered by blocks of ice. Looking to 

 the right, we should see whence they came, 

 for rising here with threatening aspect high 

 above us arc the broken ice-crags of the 

 Dome du Goute. The guides wish to pass this 

 place in silence, and it is just as well to hu- 

 mor them, however much you may doubt 

 the competence of the human voice to bring 

 the ice-crags down. From the Petit Plateau 

 a steep snow-slope would carry us to the 

 Grand Plateau, and at day-dawn I know 

 nothing in the whole Alps more grand and 

 solemn than this place. 



143. One object of our ascent would be 

 now attained ; for here at the heail of the 

 Grand Plateau, and at the foot of the final 

 slope of Mont Blanc, I should show you a 

 great crevasse, into which three guides were 

 poured by an avalanche in the ytar 1820. 



143. Is this language correct ? A crevasse 

 hardly to be distinguished from the present 

 one undoubtedly existed here in 1820. But 

 was it the identical crevasse now existing? 

 Is the ice riven here to-day the same as that 

 riven fifty-one years ago? By no means. 

 How is this proved ? By the fact that more 

 than forty years after their interment, the 

 remains of those three guides were found 

 near the end of the Glacier des Bossons, 

 many miles below the existing crevasse. 



144. The same observation proves to dem 

 onstration that it is the ice near the bottom of 

 the higher n6ve that becomes the surface-ice 



of the glacier near its end. The waste of the 

 surface below the snow-line brings the deeper 

 portions of the ice more and more to the 

 light of day. 



145. There are numerous obvious indica- 

 tions of the existence of glacier motion, 

 though it is too sl&w to catch the eyo at, 



