54 THE FORMS OF WATER IN 



of moraine issues. Both continue side by side to the 

 top of the ice-fall, where they are engulphed in the 

 chasms. But at the bottom of the fall they reappear, 

 as if newly emerging from the body of the glacier, and 

 afterwards they continue along the Mer de Glace. 



136. Walk with me now alongside the moraine from 

 the Jardin down towards the ice-fall. For a time our 

 work is easy, such fissures as appear offering no impe- 

 diment to our march. But the crevasses become 

 gradually wider and wilder, following each other at 

 length so rapidly as to leave merely walls of ice between 

 them. Here perfect steadiness of foot is necessary — a 

 slip would be death. We look towards the fall, and 

 observe the confusion of walls and blocks and chasms 

 below us increasing. At length prudence and reason 

 cry ' Halt ! ' We may swerve to the right or to the 

 left, and making our way along crests of ice, with 

 chasms on both hands, reach either the right lateral 

 moraine or the left lateral moraine of the glacier. 



§ 18. First Questions regarding Glacier Motion. Drift- 

 ing of Bodies buried in a Crevasse. 



137. But what are these lateral moraines? As you 

 and I go from day to day along the glaciers, their 

 origin is gradually made plain. We see at intervals 

 the stones and rubbish descending from the mountain 

 sides and arrested by the ice. All along the fringe of 

 the glacier the stones and rubbish fail, and it soon 



