THE ALPINE SYSTEM. 589 



line, and wear night and day, winter and summer, a shroud of frost 

 and snow. The glaciers are often of great magnificence, and equal, 

 if they do not transcend in sublimity, those of the Alps of Switzer- 

 land and Savoy. 



The Mountains of Scotland seldom exceed 3500 feet in height ; 

 the principal summits, however, Ben Mac-Dhui, and Ben Nevis, are 

 respectively, 4390 and 4368 feet. Ben Lawers, on the west side of 

 Loch Tay, reaches 3984 feet ; Ben More, in the south-west of Perth- 

 shire, 3818 feet; and Schehallion, 3514 feet. Ben Lomond, east of 

 the famous lake of that name, has an altitude of 3191 feet. The 

 characteristics of the Scotch mountains are their barren sides, only 

 relieved by patches of purple heather ; their originally fantastic and 

 broken outlines ; their deep, narrow, savage glens, which are often of 

 the gloomiest and most desolate aspect ; and their still deep tarns, or 

 lakes, mirroring each lofty height in their clear and glassy surface. 



The most important of the European systems is that of the Alps, 

 whose majestic and glorious landscapes have been for ages the admira- 

 tion of the poet and the artist. They begin, on the west, near the 

 head of the Gulf of Savoy ; sweep round the upper portion of Italy, 

 as if to shut out that historic peninsula from the European mainland ; 

 bend to the south-east to approach the Adriatic ; and throw out a 

 spur, or prolongation, along the eastern shore of that sea, and parallel 

 with it. That portion of the system which borders the Medi- 

 terranean is distinguished as the Maritime Alps ; between Italy 

 on the one side, and France and Savoy on the other, lie the Cot- 

 tian and Graian Alps ; from Mont Blanc to Monte Rosa stretch 

 the Pennine Alps ; further to the eastward extend the Lepontine, 

 Rhetian, and Noric Alps ; and south-easterly, the Carnic, the Julian, 

 and the Dinaric Alps. The Bernese Alps form the northern barrier of 

 the Valley of the Rhone ; their direction is parallel to that of the 

 Pennine.* 



* Compare Malte Erun, eel. by Lavallee, " Geographic Universelle ;" Mrs. Somerville, 

 ' ; Physical Geography;" and Sir J. Herschel, "Physical Geography" (Encycl. Britt., 

 inh edit.) 



