144 THE FORMS OF WATER IN 



360. This is the place to mention a notion long 

 entertained by the inhabitants of the high Alps, that 

 glaciers possess the power of thrusting out all impu- 

 rities from them. On the Mer de Glace you and I 

 have noticed large patches of clay and black mud which 

 evidently came from the body of the glacier, and we can 

 therefore understand how natural was this notion of 

 extrusion to people unaccustomed to close observation. 

 But the power of the glacier in this respect is in reality 

 the power of the sun, which fuses the ice above con- 

 cealed impurities, and, like the bodies of the guides on 

 the Glacier des Bossons (143), brings them to the light 

 of day. 



361. On no other glacier will you find more object.! 

 of interest than on the Gorner. Sand cones, glacier- 

 tables, deep ice gorges cut by streams and bridged fan- 

 tastically by boulders, moulins, sometimes arched ice- 

 caverns of extraordinary size and beauty. On the lower 

 part of the glacier we notice the partial disappearance of 

 the medial moraine in the crevasses, and its reappear- 

 ance at the foot of the incline. For many years this 

 glacier was steadily advancing on the meadow in front 

 of it, ploughing up the soil and overturning the chalets 

 in its way. It now shares in the general retreat exhi- 

 bited during the last fifteen years among the glaciers 

 of the Alps. As usual, a river, the Visp, rushes from 

 a vault at the extremity of the Gorner glacier. 



