50 SIXTH LETTER ON GLACIERS. [1844. 



taine epaisseur de lave liquide ou du moins visqueuse, se trouve 

 dans im etat comparable a celui d'un glacier, qui, ne pouvant 

 adherer au sol sousjacent a cause de la fusion continuelle de sa 

 couche inferieure, se trouve contraint a glisser;"* shewing that 

 the author then adopted the theory of Saussure (since ably 

 defended by Mr. Hopkins), in which the fusion of the ice by 

 the heat of the earth, might be said, in some sense, to float 

 down the superincumbent solid ; an opinion best controverted 

 by the fact which M. E. de Beaumont has since clearly brought 

 into notice, that under existing circumstances such fusion is 

 perfectly insigriificant.t 



The writer of a popular Italian guide-book, Mrs. Starke, 

 is perhaps one of the first who indicated the striking general 

 resemblance of a stream of lava to a glacier. She describes the 

 former (which she saw during a small eruption of Vesuvius) as 

 " rolling, wave after wave, slowly down the mountain with the 

 same noise (?) and in the same manner, as the melting glaciers 

 roll into the valley of Chamouni ; indeed, this awful and extra- 

 ordinary scene would have brought to mind the base of the 

 Montanvert, had it not been for the crimson glare and excessive 

 heat of the surrounding scoriae. "J 



Mr. Auldjo, the author of a Narrative of an Ascent of Mount 

 Blanc, and therefore acquainted with the appearance of glaciers, 

 has renewed Mrs. Starke's comparison in very similar expres- 

 sions, in a work more recently published upon Mount Vesuvius. 

 Captain Basil Hall has, if I mistake not, in more than one part 

 of his writings suggested the picturesque analogy of volcanoes 

 and icy mountains, the cradle of glaciers. 



We have seen how far there is a real analogy between the 

 mechanism of these two terrible scourges of Almighty power 

 the ice-flood and the fire-flood, both of which invade the homes 

 and the labours of man, with a force alike irresistible. But 

 to render the analogy more than apparent or poetical, it was 



* Recherches sur 1'Etna, p. 177. 



-J- Annales des Sciences Geologiques par Riviere. 



| Starke's Travels. French edition, p. 311. 



