SNOW AND ICE 45 



then, it melts more and more. Little streams form all over its 

 surface. Warmed by the sun these little streams melt the ice 

 more and more. They hollow out great cavities in it, and sweep 

 down into these cavities. Finally, there comes a moment when 

 the valley conquers the mountain, the ice melts away into a great 

 river, which pours down the lower slopes of the mountain, in haste 

 to carry back to the sea the water which has been so long parted 

 from it. In some such way we might use our observations of a 

 winter snowstorm to lay the foundations of a conception of glacier 

 action, which would be further elaborated later by the teacher 

 of physical geography. 



As a contrast with these Alpine conditions, we should on 

 another occasion consider the special conditions seen in the Arctic 

 or Antarctic, which are also the conditions which once existed 

 in our own area. 



Thus, after a heavy snowstorm, we might begin a lesson 

 as follows : 



Once upon a time a great amount of snow fell over Scotland 

 and part of England. So much snow fell that the sun of 

 summer never completely melted the snow of winter. At 

 first only the hills were covered with this permanent mantle, 

 but gradually it crept down and down, as always more snow 

 fell than was melted. At last all the land was snow-covered 

 except just the steep parts of the high mountains, which stuck 

 like rocks through the great waste of snow. All Scotland 

 and a great part of England were then much like what Greenland 

 is now a great snowfield, with almost no life, but with great 

 bare rocks sticking out of the snow. In those days, as in the 

 icy North now, the snow accumulated in the high mountain 

 valleys was squeezed into ice by the weight of the fresh snow 

 always falling on the surface, and from those high valleys tongues 

 of ice began to creep out towards the low ground, just as they 

 creep down from the Alps now. But in Britain in those days, 

 just as in the Far North now, as the ice crept slowly down to the 

 low ground it found very different conditions from those which 

 exist in the Alps. 



In the Alps, though the mountains are cold, the valleys are 

 very hot. As the ice comes down lower and lower it feels the 



