﻿THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



SUPPLEMENT to VOL. XLI. FOURTH SERIES. 



LXIII. On Glaciers. By Albert Heim, of Zurich*. 

 [With a Plate.] 



THE glacier-clad mountains of my native country, especially 

 when glistening in the rays of evening, exerted on me, 

 from my childhood, a powerful attraction ; and this was after- 

 wards enhanced by their scientific interest. The present memoir 

 contains individual observations and reflections upon certain phe- 

 nomena of glaciers — the result of the magnificent days I have 

 spent in the glacier-region under all conditions of the atmosphere, 

 of the study of the literature of the subject, and of some experi- 

 mental researches. 



1. The Glacier- Grain, 



The observations of the capillary fissures which run through 

 the ice of glaciers, and form the boundaries of the glacier-grain, 

 and the reflections suggested by them, especially as regards their 

 origin, occasioned a strong controversy among those who 30 or 

 40 years ago devoted themselves to glacier-investigation; and 

 no one conquered. In the more recent works the question is 

 mostly passed over. Even Professor Tyndall (/ Glaciers of the 

 Alps/ pp. 338, 339) devotes only a few lines to the capillary 

 fissures, and does not mention the glacier-grain. So much the 

 more were we surprised at a memoir by M. Grad, which appeared 

 in 1867, in the Comptes Rendus, in which he advances precisely 

 the view which Hugi forty years previously had so energetically 

 maintained. It is not clear from the memoir whether the author 

 was acquainted with Hugi's writings, or whether by his own 

 observations he has independently arrived at the same result. 

 This view may be briefly expressed thus : — Direct observation 

 teaches that the grains (or crystals) of the glacier are the further 



* Translated from a separate copy, communicated by the Author, from 

 Poggendorffs Annalen, Erganzungsband v. pp. 30-63 (1870). 



Phil Mag. S. 4. No. 276. Suppl. Vol. 41. 2 K 



