ICE AND GLACIERS. 145 



of Constance, the Lago Maggiore, the Lake of Como, and 

 the Lago di Grarda are chiefly fed with glacier waters ; 

 their clearness and their wonderfully beautiful blue or 

 blue-green colour are the delight of all travellers. 



Yet, leaving aside the beauty of these waters, and con- 

 sidering only their utility, we shall have still more reason 

 for admiration. The unsightly mud, which the glacier 

 streams wash away, forms a highly fertile soil in the 

 places where it is deposited ; for its state of mechanical 

 division is extremely fine, and it is moreover an utterly 

 unexhausted virgin soil, rich in the mineral food of plants. 

 The fruitful layers of fine loam which extend along the 

 whole Ehine plain as far as Belgium, and are known as 

 Loess, are nothing more than the dust of ancient glaciers. 



Then, again, the irrigation of a district, which is effected 

 by the snow-fields and glaciers of the mountains, is distin- 

 guished from that of other places by its comparatively 

 greater abundancy, for the moist air which is driven over 

 the cold mountain peaks deposits there most of the water 

 it contains in the form of snow. In the second place, the 

 snow melts most rapidly in summer, and thus the springs 

 which flow from the snow-fields are most abundant in that 

 season of the year in which they are most needed. 



Thus we ultimately get to know the wild, dead ice- 

 wastes from another point of view. From them trickles 

 in thousands of rills, springs, and brooks the fructifying 

 moisture which enables the industrious dwellers of the 

 Alps to procure succulent vegetation and abundance of 

 nourishment from the wild mountain slopes. On the 

 comparatively small surface of the Alpine chain they 

 produce the mighty streams, the Ehine, the Ehone, the 

 Po, the Adige, the Inn, which for hundreds of miles form 

 broad, rich river-valleys, extending through Europe to the 

 German Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the 

 Black Sea. Let us call to mind how magnificently Goethe, 



