Ice-needles to Ice-mountains 



of thawing goes on, but never anything like 

 enough to balance the wintry additions. Exactly 

 at the snow-line the quantity of snow which falls 

 and the quantity which thaws in the year are 

 about equal. Lower down the yearly thawing 

 exceeds the yearly snowfall. 



But if, above that line, more snow is being 

 added year by year than can thaw and flow 

 away, must it not be that those mountains which 

 wear perpetual snow are always growing higher ? 



It certainly would be so if the snow heaped 

 upon those summits had no other outlet, no other 

 means of escape to the Ocean the goal of all 

 Earth's waters. But another mode of escape 

 is found. Superabundant snow on mountain 

 heights gets away by means of glaciers. 



We have had to think about liquid rivers 

 flowing in the ocean, and here are solid rivers 

 flowing on the land. Liquid rivers with liquid 

 banks ; solid rivers with solid banks. A curious 

 anomaly in either case. 



The higher levels of land are drained by 

 rivers pouring down to lower levels and thence 

 into the sea ; and it is the same with the mighty 

 snowfields of Switzerland as with any gentle 

 range of English hills, only here we have 

 rivers of ice instead of rivers of water. 



83 



