288 A Week among the Glaciers. 



mit beyond the centre of gravity, and it pitched headlong down 

 the broken plane of the crevice, which was followed by an active 

 scene of wild and terrific confusion. Avalanche succeeded ava- 

 lanche of enormous size, as the fall of one detached others larger 

 than itself. 



At first their motion was slow and regular, as they merely slid 

 from their resting places, till arrested by another mass, when they 

 came tumbling, rolling, and bounding down as their velocity in- 

 creased, till no barrier could check their impetuous course. 



At their onset, each could be distinctly seen, and marked amid 

 the rest, till by their increased velocity, according to the obsta- 

 cles they encountered as they rolled onward in their descent, 

 bounding from crag to crag with resistless force, they would 

 rend and shiver themselves and opposing obstacles into im- 

 mense masses. They seemed to gain additional power from 

 each opposing barrier, till opposer and opposed, rent into ten 

 thousand fragments, rushed headlong, tearing, crashing, thun- 

 dering down, as if possessing within themselves the elements 

 of life ; then deviating from side to side, as any solid angular in- 

 clination turned them from their forward course, till ground and 

 broken into myriads of pieces, their forms became too indistinct 

 to be any longer discerned. They then assumed the confused 

 appearance of a circumscribed storm of thick hail and snow, 

 driven madly onward by a furious tempest, until it reached its 

 final resting place, far down in the rough and jagged bosom of 

 the glacier, of which it now forms a part, to be carried slowly 

 yet surely to the valley, and there being liquefied by the rays of 

 a summer sun, to aid in swelling the torrent of the Arve. This 

 mountain river, as if exulting in being loosed from its icy bondage, 

 then leaps joyously along, till it mingles its waters with the deep 

 blue sea — although mingled, yet it is not lost, for it may again 

 assume another and a lighter form, as in vapor it rises from the 

 tranquil bosom of the Mediterranean, a part to be wafted by the 

 soft zephyrs of Italy to irrigate her fertile plains, while the rest 

 may be again transported to clothe anew the lofty summit of 

 some snow-capped Alp. 



Those travellers who from the valley of Chamonix have seen 

 these masses of ice falling from the summit of Mont Blanc, on 

 the Grand Plateau, in consequence of their distance and great 

 height, can form no idea of their size. These blocks of ice, 



