THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GLACIERS 109 



fell and the distant details were lost to view I felt 

 as though a venerable, but decrepit, friend had passed 

 from my sight, never to return. I was rejoiced to 

 see the glaciers still there when the morning sun 

 showed forth their strange opaque white and faintly 

 green masses on the mountain sides stupendous 

 outpourings, as it were, of whipped cream tinted 

 with pistachio-nut. 



But was it true, that lament of the Genevese savant ? 

 Undoubtedly the glaciers in many parts of the Alps 

 have been shrinking for the last thirty years. It is 

 longer than that since I first saw the glaciers of the 

 Chamonix valley, and there is no doubt that they have 

 shrunk up since then, leaving acres of boulders and 

 bare polished rock where was the ice I formerly climbed. 

 The glacier of Argentiere, near the upper end of the 

 valley, is a mile or more shorter than it was ; the 

 ice caves which we used to visit at the foot of the 

 Mer de Glace have melted away, and the end of the 

 glacier is now high up above a precipitous surface of 

 polished rock far from the site of the little pavilion, 

 with its gay flag and amiable guardian, who used to 

 exhibit the marvellous ice cavern. 



I find on looking into the matter that it is true that 

 there has, during the latter half of the past century, 

 been a great dwindling of the lower end or " snout," 

 a drawing back, as it were, not only of Swiss glaciers, 

 but of glaciers in other parts of the world as, for 

 instance, in Alaska and in the Himalayas. But I 

 cannot avoid a feeling of satisfaction in recording the 

 opinion of geological authorities that, contrary to the 

 assertion of the Swiss pessimist, there is not any ground 

 for believing that the present noticeable shrinking is 

 due to a continuous process by which the enormous 

 glaciers of remote ages have been incessantly reduced 

 until now they are but rootlets or stumps of the former 



