178 Notice of Prof. Forbes 's Travels in the Alps. 



strained by the crosses and inequalities of its prescribed path, hedged in 

 by impassable barriers which fix limits to its movements, it yields to its 

 fate, and still travels forward, seamed with the scars of many a conflict 

 with opposing obstacles. All this while, although wasting, it is renewed 

 by an unseen power, — it evaporates, but is not consumed. On its sur- 

 face it bears the spoils which, during the progress of existence, it has 

 made its own ; — often weighty burdens, devoid of beauty or value — at 

 times, precious masses, sparkling with gems or with ore. Having at 

 length attained its greatest width and extension, commanding admiration 

 by its beauty and power, waste predominates over supply, the vital 

 springs begin to fail ; it stoops into an attitude of decrepitude ; it drops 

 the burdens, one by one, which it has borne so proudly aloft ; its disso- 

 lution is inevitable. But, as it is resolved into its elements, it takes all 

 at once a new and livelier and disembarrassed form ; — from the wreck 

 of its members, it arises ' another, yet the same.' A noble, full-bod- 

 ied, arrowy stream, which leaps rejoicing over the obtacles which before 

 had stayed its progress, and hastens through fertile valleys towards a 

 freer existence and a final union in the ocean, with the beautiful and 

 the infinite." 



Prof. Forbes spent many summers iri exploring the Alps, encour- 

 aged the more to continue and repeat his arduous and adventurous jour- 

 neys, because it has now become so easy to arrive promptly at the 

 scene of one's explorations. 



" The modern facilities for travelling extend not only to England, 

 France, Germany, and what in former days was called the grand lour, 

 but gentlemen now walk across Siberia with as little discomposure as 

 ladies ride on horseback to Florence. Even the Atlantic is but a high- 

 way for loungers on the American continent, and the overland route to 

 India is chronicled like that from London to Bath. The desert has its 

 posthouses, and Athens has its omnibusses." 



He appears strongly impressed by the belief that even in the coun- 

 tries most visited and explored, much more remains unknown than has 

 been described, and " it is not too much to say, that the natural history 

 of a great part of the chain of the Alps, the most instructive and the 

 grandest theatre of natural operations in Europe, is in this predicament." 

 Although the work of Prof. Forbes is avowedly a book of travels, its 

 principal aim " is to illustrate the physical geography of a particular 

 district, in one of the most frequented regions of the Alps ; and more 

 especially to arrive at results of a definite kind respecting the natural 

 history of the glaciers, those great masses of ice which so generally 

 attract the casual, though only the casual, notice of travellers." It is 

 now a good many years since our author projected these travels, having 

 visited the Swiss Alps in early youth, and having carefully refreshed 



