CHAPTER II. 



EXISTING GLACIERS. 



In Europe. — Our specific account of existing glaciers 

 naturally begins with those of the Alps, where Hugi, 

 Charpentier, Agassiz, Forbes, and Guyot, before the mid- 

 dle of this century, first brought clearly to light the reality 

 and nature of glacial motion. 



According to Professor Heim, of Zurich, the total area 

 covered by the glaciers and ice-fields of the Alps is up- 

 wards of three thousand square kilometres (about eleven 

 hundred square miles). The Swiss Alps alone contain 

 nearly two-thirds of this area. Professor Heim enumer- 

 ates 1,155 distinct glaciers in the region. Of these, 144 

 are in France, 78 in Italy, 471 in Switzerland, and 462 in 

 Austria. 



Desor describes fourteen principal glacial districts in 

 the Alps, the westernmost of which is that of Mont Pel- 

 voux, in Dauphiny, and the easternmost that in the vicin- 

 ity of the Gross Glockner, in Carinthia. The most im- 

 portant of the Alpine systems are those which are grouped 

 around Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the Finsteraarhorn, 

 the two former peaks being upwards of fifteen thousand 

 feet in height, and the latter upwards of fourteen thou- 

 sand. The area covered by glaciers and snow-fields in the 

 Bernese Oberland, of which Finsteraarhorn is the culmi- 

 nating point, is about three hundred and fifty square kilo- 

 metres (a hundred square miles), and contains the Aletsch 

 Glacier, which is the longest in Europe, extending twenty- 

 one kilometres (about fourteen miles) from the ;?eV?'-field 



