AMONG THE GLACIERS. 25 



stretches a fathomless crevasse, in which a number of persons 

 have been lost. This is the "Grande Crevasse," and for a 

 long time it prevented all successful approach to the moun- 

 tain's summit. Sometimes a temporary bridge is stretched 

 across by drifting snow. Occasionally it becomes sufficiently 

 solid to serve for a passage over, but it is always treacherous, 

 and once precipitated an English lady and her companion to 

 a depth from which they were never recovered. 



From the Grande Crevasse stretches a gentle slope called 

 _the Grand Plateau at an elevation of thirteen thousand feet. 

 This is covered with granular neve. Along its lower limit the 

 snow-mass is broken into tumultuous confusion, and the pas- 

 sage ovei it is difficult and dangerous. Below this is the 

 Little Plateau, ten thousand feet above sea-level ; and then 

 come other broken belts of snowy precipices. Now, the 

 upper limits of two glaciers are reached in the downward 

 flow of the ice. This common ice-field is a scene of grand 

 confusion. The mountain slope beneath the ice-sheet presents 

 many irregularities of pitch, and many projecting bosses. 

 Over all these the ice-stream flows toward the lower level. In 

 one place, nine thousand feet above sea-level, a vast pinnacled 

 mass of rock rises some hundreds of feet above the ice. This 

 divides the wide stream, but the parts completely coalesce 

 again around the lower side. In other places, the underlying 

 inequalities break the sheet by fractures large and small. 

 Some of these crevasses extend up the general slope, and 

 others are transverse. The ice-mass is therefore broken into 

 innumerable prismatic fragments. The tremendous mashing 

 together which they experience through the movements of 

 the flow, squeeze numbers of them out of their places; and 

 they stand as huge pyramids and columns ten, twenty, and 

 forty feet above the general surface. The columnar forms 

 are called seracs. The afternoon sun acts on them, and some 

 are sharpened to a point; others are worked out at the sides, 

 and stand with broad flat caps. Finally they tumble down 

 or waste away, while new ones rise in other places. Though 

 the ice is continually shattered by crevassing, the fissures are 



3 



