CHAPTER Y. 



GLACIERS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD. 



Before finally concentrating our attention upon the 

 ancient glaciated area of North America, it will be profit- 

 able to take a glance at existing glaciers in other parts of 

 the world. As is well known, glaciers still envelop the 

 island of Spitzbergen and linger in the mountains of Nor- 

 way and Sweden, of central Europe, and of southern Asia. 

 Yast glaciers also come down to the sea-level in Patagonia, 

 and appear higher up upon the mountains of southern Chili. 

 The mountains of New Zealand* likewise contain numerous 

 groups of glaciers nearly as extensive as those of the Alps. 

 The so-called Antarctic Continent would seem to be covered 

 with one vast sheet of ice pressing outward, and breaking off 

 into immense icebergs. 



The glaciers of tlie Alps have been so frequently described 

 that only a few words need be devoted to them here. It is 

 estimated that there are as many as four hundred glaciers in 

 the Alpine range between Mont Blanc and Tyrol, and that, 

 all told, they cover an area of more than 1,400 square miles. 

 In many places the ice is estimated to be 600 feet in thick- 

 ness. The Aletsch Glacier, in the Bernese Oberland, is the 

 longest in the Alps, being not far from twenty miles. Many 

 others are ten miles or more in length, and are often in certain 

 portions of their course from one mile to one mile and a half 

 wide. The line of perpetual snow in the Alps is something 



* See Whitney's " Climatic Changes," pp. 269-274, to which we are largely 

 indebted for the facts presented in this chapter. 



