Alpine Valleys and Alpine Lakes, 83 



Tyndall cannot possibly apply to a system of valleys which are, 

 without exception, parallel to the highest ridges, and where, if 

 the present inequalities were filled up, and the whole mass 

 covered with ice, the new glaciers, supposing them competent to 

 form valleys, would certainly shape them at right angles to their 

 present direction. 



If he neglect these outlying ranges for a moment, and direct 

 his attention to the central region of the Alps, the observer will 

 scarcely fail to note, as one of the most characteristic features of 

 the Swiss Alps, the line of valley which extends for nearly 140 

 miles from Martigny to Coire. With one slight distortion, the 

 Rhone flows directly from E.N.E. to W.S.W. between the 

 Furka Pass and Martigny. On the opposite side of that low 

 pass, the line of valley descending to Andermatt preserves exactly 

 the same direction. The famous gorge of the Devil's Bridge 

 allows the Reuss to carry off towards the north the drainage of 

 the valley, but the main line of depression keeps true to its 

 original direction through the glen that mounts to the Oberalp 

 Pass ; and east of that ridge the same direction is so accurately 

 preserved, that a line drawn from Chiamot (the highest hamlet) 

 to Coire is nowhere half a mile from the present bed of the 

 Vorder Rhine. Another of the main valleys of the Alps, that 

 of the Inn, is nearly exactly parallel to the standard line which 

 we have traced across Switzerland. From Kufstein, where the 

 railway enters the Tyrol, the valley of the Inn, with a slight 

 distortion between Innsbruck and Ried, maintains a constant di- 

 rection up to its head at the lake of Sils ; but a traveller following 

 steadily the same course finds the pass of the Maloja west of the 

 lake very little raised above the level of the valleys on either 

 side, and leading through the Val Bregaglia to Chiavenna, from 

 whence, if he will keep on W.S.W. across the ridge that sepa- 

 rates him from Roveredo, he will enter another line of valley 

 that is continuous with the upper end of the Lago Maggiore, 

 and may even be traced through the Val Vegezzo and the Val 

 Anzasca to the foot of Monte Rosa. It is sufficient to carry the 

 eye across the map, to perceive how very generally the same 

 direction prevails among the valleys of the central region of the 

 Alps, and that, as in the instances above quoted, these lines of 

 depression traverse a ridge, or contain streams that flow in oppo- 

 site directions — showing that by no conceivable change in the 

 general conformation of the land could a single stream or glacier 

 have done the work. The line of valley, in great part occupied 

 by lakes, that stretches from Interlaken to Kussnach on the Lake 

 of Lucerne, the system of valleys between the Lake of Thun and 

 the Rhone, the Val Pellina, the Lex Blanche or Allee Blanche, 

 and the Valley of Chamouni, are so many instances in point, 



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