392 



EARTH FEATURES AND THEIR MEANING 



the neve" of the Glacier des Bossons (Fig. 418). In 1858 Dr. 

 Forbes, who had measured the rate of flow of a number of Alpine 

 glaciers, predicted that the bodies of the victims of this accident 

 would be given up by the glacier after being entombed from thirty- 

 five to forty years. In the year 1861, or forty-one years after the 



FIG. 418. View of the Glacier des Bossons upon the slopes of Mont Blanc show- 

 ing the position of accidents to Alpinists and the place of reappearance of their 

 bodies. 



disaster, the heads of the three guides, separated from their bodies, 

 with some hands and fragments of clothing, appeared at the foot 

 of the Glacier des Bossons, and in such a state of preservation that 

 they were easily recognized by a guide who had known them in 

 life. Inasmuch as these fragments of the bodies had required 

 forty-one years to travel in the ice the three thousand meters 

 which separate the place of the accident from the foot of the 

 glacier, the rate of movement was twenty centimeters, or eight 

 inches, per day. 



Various separated parts of the body of Captain Arkwright, who 

 had been lost in 1866 upon the neVe of the same glacier, reap- 

 peared at its foot after entombment in* the ice for a period of thirty- 

 one years. To-day the time of reappearance of portions of the 

 bodies of persons lost upon Mont Blanc is rather accurately pre- 

 dicted, so that friends repair to Chamonix to await the giving up 

 of its victims by the Glacier des Bossons. 



