26 WALKS AND TALKS. 



continually closing together, when changes in underlying con- 

 figuration permit. Two fractured surfaces pressed tightly 

 unite again as one mass; and a patch shivered into ten thou- 

 sand fragments becomes solid and transparent under the lat- 

 eral squeezing to which it may become subjected. So, to 

 whatever extent the ice-sheet may be shattered, it is continu- 

 ally healing, and tends to return to the condition of a sound 

 and solid mass. Thus the tourist, picking his way among the 

 seracs, and jumping the bottomless chasms, hears frequently 

 the detonation of some new split, which is echoed back from 

 the red pinnacles of Mont Maudit, which rises on his left. 

 These themselves hurl down rocky fragments to keep alive 

 the watchfulness of the traveler, and place material on the 

 back of the glacier to be borne gradually but steadily down 

 toward the valley. 



The common glacier-field just mentioned strikes the sharp 

 upper limit of a mountain salience, which slopes down to the 

 valley of Chamonix, and separates two mountain valleys. 

 This prominent dividing point is the Aiguille de la Tour. As 

 the common ice-mass impinges against it, the ice parts to the 

 right and left like a river. Down the western valley flows 

 the ice-stream known as the Glacier de Taconnay. Down the 

 eastern valley flows the greater stream known as the Glacier 

 des Bossons, having the little village of Bossons at its foot. 

 Another valley lies still farther west, and the common ice- 

 field of Mont Blanc fills it with a stream known as Glacier 

 de la Gria. 



These three glaciers descend to the valley on the west of 

 the pretty village of Chamonix. On the east are three others. 

 The nearest is the celebrated Mer de Glace, the lower part of 

 which is called the Glacier des Bois, with the little village of 

 Bois at its foot. The snowy eastern slope of Mont Blanc and 

 Mont Maudit (Mo-dee) feeds an enormous glacier which, to an 

 observer from the valley of Chamonix, lies behind the pinna- 

 cled summits of Charmoz and Midi. This is the Glacier du 

 Ge"ant, and it forms the western tributary of the Mer de 

 Glace. Into the head of the Mer de Glace comes the Glacier 



