GLACIERS OF THE ALPS AND OF NORWAY. 237 



the subject, and with those countries,* we may state generally, 

 that wherever (in Europe) any. considerable area of mountainous 

 country rises above the snow-line, there glaciers are found in 

 more or less abundance. In the Alps this level is, on an average, 

 about 7200 feet, including glaciers of all descriptions (Schlagint- 

 weit) . The great glaciers have of course the lowest mean level. 

 Of these there are, on the same authority, sixty in the whole 

 Alpine chain. Glaciers commence on the south-western pro- 

 longation of the chain in the region of Mont Pelvoux and Monte 

 Viso (lat. 45), and they extend on the N.E. to the Gross 

 Glockner in Carinthia. The best known and most important 

 glacier-bearing groups in the interval are those of Mont Blanc, 

 Monte Rosa, the Bernese Alps (Finsteraarhorn and Jungfrau), 

 and the Oertler Spitz in the Tyrol. The most considerable in- 

 dividual glaciers are the Mer de Glace of Chamouni, the Gorner 

 Glacier near Zermatt (Monte Rosa), the Lower Glacier of the 

 Aar (Bernese Oberland), the Aletsch Glacier and Glacier of the 

 Rhone (Vallais), and the Pasterzeii Glacier (Carinthia). Of 

 these, the first, third, and last, have been made the subjects of 

 the most careful surveys and observations. 



In Great Britain no mountain fully attains the height of the 

 snow-line, consequently there are no glaciers. But patches of 

 snow, with a more or less icy structure, remain through the 

 summer in the clefts of some of the Scottish hills. Geological 

 appearances, however, strongly indicate the former existence of 

 glaciers, especially in Scotland and Wales. 



In Norway we find two principal groups of glacier-bearing 

 mountains those in the Bergenstift and those within the arctic 

 circle. The former were well described by M. Durocher.f 

 The present writer, in a recent work,J has detailed his observa- 

 tions on most of them, has given an enumeration of all the 

 known glaciers of Norway, and has compared their conditions 

 and structure with those of the glaciers of the Alps. Of the 



* Gniner's and De Saussure's Travels in the Alps; Forbes's Travels in the 

 Alps of /Savoy; Agassiz, Etudes sur les Glaciers; Hugi, Alpenreise; Schlagint- 

 weit, Untersuchungen ; and Johnston's Physical Atlas. 



f Annales des Mines, 4th series, torn. xii. 



| Forbes's Norway and its Glaciers visited in 1851. 



