CHAPTER XXVI 

 LAND SCULPTURE BY MOUNTAIN GLACIERS 



Contrasted sculpturing of continental and mountain glaciers. 

 In discussing in a previous chapter the rock pavement lately un- 

 covered by the Greenland glacier, we learned that this surface had 

 been lowered by the processes of plucking and abrasion, the com- 

 bined effect of which is always to reduce the irregularities of the 

 surface, soften its outlines, and from sharply projecting masses to 

 develop rounded shoulders of rock roches moutonnees. 



Though the same processes act in much the same manner beneath 

 mountain glaciers, though here upon all parts of the bed, they are, 

 in the earlier stages at least, subordinated to a third process more 

 important than the two acting together. Sculpture by mountain 

 glaciers, instead of reducing surface irregularities and softening 

 outlines, increases the accent of the relief and produces the most 

 sharply rugged topography that is known. In nearly all places 

 where Alpinists resort for difficult rock climbing, mountain gla- 

 ciers are to be seen, or the evidence for their former presence may 

 be read in unmistakable characters. 



Wind distribution of the snow which falls in mountains. 

 Until quite recently students of glaciation have concerned them- 

 selves but little with the work of the wind in lifting and redis- 

 tributing the snow after it has fallen. We have already seen that, 

 for the continental glaciers, wind appears to be the chief trans- 

 porting agent, if we except the marginal lobes where glacier flow 

 assumes large importance. In the case of mountain glaciers, also, 

 we are to find that for the earlier stages particularly wind is of the 

 first importance as a redistributing agent. In the higher levels 

 snow is swept up from the ground by all high winds, and does not 

 find a resting place until it is dropped beneath an eddy in some 

 irregularity of the surface; and if the inherited surface be rela- 



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