
 ParrIl. Srcr. ii, §5.] GLACIER TRANSPORT. 409 
the earth, stones, and rubbish which, loosened by frost, or washed 
down by rain and rills, slip from the cliffs and slopes. In this part 
of its work the glacier resembles a river which carries down branches 
and leaves from the woods on its banks. Most of the detritus rests 
on the surface of the ice. It includes huge masses of rock, sometimes 
as big as a large cottage, all which, though seemingly at rest, are 
slowly travelling down the valley with the ice, and liable at any 
moment to slip into the crevasses which may open below them. 
When they thus disappear they may descend to the bottom of the ice, 


































































































































































































































































































































































































Fig. 141.—View OF THE UPPER PART OF THE ZERMATT GLACIER (AGassIz). 
Showing longitudinal lines of moraines and transverse crevasses. The mora‘nes 
on the left descend from Monte Rosa and the Gornerhorn, those on the right from 
the Little Cervin and Furke-flue. 
and move with it along the rocky floor, which is no doubt the fate of 
a large proportion of the smaller stones and sand. But the large stones 
seem sometimes at least to be cast up again by the ice to the surface 
of the glacier at a lower part of its course. Whetier, therefore, on the 
ice, in the ice, or under the ice, a vast quantity of detritus is con- 
tinually travelling with the glacier down towards the plains. The 
rubbish lying on the surface is called moraine stuff. Naturally it 
accumulates on either side ofthe glacier, where it forms the so-called 
lateral moraines. When two glaciers unite, their two adjacent lateral 
