CHANGES IN THE RHONE GLACIER.1 
WE are indebted to Swiss naturalists for in- 
itiating a careful study of glaciers, and 
this has been extended, as we learn from the 
Zeitschrift fiir Gletscherkunde, to many of the 
most important regions on the earth’s surface. 
In the majority of these their history, prior to 
the last few years, is a blank. That their glaciers 
have advanced and retreated is obvious, but when 
and at what rate is unknown. In the Alps, how- 
ever, traditions exist which preserve a fairly 
trustworthy account of the more notable move- 
ments for at least two centuries, and the volume 
now issued by the Swiss Natural History Society, 
to which M. P. L. Mercanton is the principal 
contributor, gives, with some mention of these, 
the results of careful observations of the Rhone 
Glacier since 1874. 
As two. well- 
known passes, the 
Furka and _ the 
Grimsel, command 
magnificent views 
of this glacier, it 
has for long been 
noticed by travel- 
lers, and is repre- 
sented in illustra- 
tions to books 
before the days of 
photography, the 
earliest which has 
any value dating 
from 1777. Besson 
says that the 
glacier was then 
advancing, and 
had four: distinct 
terminal moraines, 
one at “216 ft; 
another at 269 ft., 
a third at 551 ft., 
and the last at 
771 {t. Shepherds 
told him it had 
been retreating for 
twenty years. In 
September, 1826, there were about four well- 
marked terminals, besides two or three others 
less distinct. But it must have advanced 
rapidly between this date and 1834, for in that 
year its end was near a newly built auberge, 
and the swollen aspect of the lower part of 
the glacier suggests that it was still moving for- 
wards. In 1848 this tongue covered half the 
Gletsch valley, but there were still four distinct 
terminal moraines in front of it, which in the 
next year had been reduced to two. 
A more complete record exists, as might be 
expected, for the two well-known glaciers at 
Grindelwald, and as they are only about twenty- 
“Ve _ > » - . 
1 “ Vermessungen am Rh onegletscher, 1874-1915." Geleitet und heraus- 
gegeben von den Gletscher-Kommission der Schweizerischen Naturfor- 
schenden Gesellschaft (Neue Denkechriften der Schweizerischen Natur- 
forschenden Gesellschaft). Band lii. Pp. r90 + maps and illustrations. 
(Bale, Geneva, and Lyons: Georg and Co., 1916.) 
NO. 2466, voL. 98] 
NATURE 
Fic. 1.—The Rhone Glacier in August, 1849. 
[FEBRUARY I, 1917. 
five miles distant in a_ straight line from the 
Rhone Glacier, their phases “are likely to corre- 
spond. In 1540 these had greatly shrunk, but 
they made an equally marked advance from 1575, 
to 1600, and attained, during the next two years,, 
the greatest extension on record. A retreat then. 
began, which became important between 1661 
and 1686, but the glaciers advanced again in 1703: 
and retired in 1720. From 1743 to 1779 was a 
period of marked advance, which culminated im 
the latter year, and was followed by a retreat, 
which, if the shepherds of the district can be 
trusted, had already set in with the Rhone 
Glacier. But in 1819 the Grindelwald glaciers. 
had again become large, though they had not: 
reached the limit of 1602. Then came a period 
of retreat, but between 1840 and 1855 they again 
moved forward, like the other glaciers of the 
From a daguerreotype. 
Alps, though not to their former limit; then, in the 
latter year, the recession began, which lasted, with 
slight oscillations, not always in correspondence, 
until 1912, when both glaciers moved forward. 
But this retreat was at first very slow, for in 
1858 the torrent from the Lower Glacier issued 
from an ice-cave on the bed of the main valley, 
and the deep gorge, now made accessible, was 
wholly hidden by the ice. In that year also the 
Rhone Glacier had a swollen end, and in the 
following one the writer saw the Gorner Glacier at 
Zermatt ploughing up the turf in front. But 
two or three years later the retreat became rapid, 
so that by 1870 the gorge and the old marble 
quarry at Grindelwald had been exposed. 
It is difficult to account for these variations in 
the size of glaciers. The information collected. 
during recent years indicates that, as a rule,. 
