CLOUDS AND RIVERS, ICE AND GLACIERS. 145 



§ 53. Ancient Glaciers <>f Switzerland. 



362. You have not lost the memory of the old 

 Moraine, which interested us so much in our first ascent 

 from the source of the Arveiron ; for it opened our 

 minds to the fact that at one period of its history the 

 Mer de Glace attained far greater dimensions than it 

 now exhibits. Our experience since that time has 

 enabled us to pursue these evidences of ice action to an 

 extent of which we had then no notion. 



363. Close to the existing glacier, for example, we 

 have repeatedly seen the mountain side laid bare by the 

 retreat of the ice. This is especially conspicuous just 

 now, because for the last fifteen or sixteen years the 

 glaciers of the Alps have been steadily shrinking; so 

 that it is no uncommon thing to see the marginal rocks 

 laid bare for a height of fifty, sixty, eighty, or even one 

 hundred feet above the present glacier. On the rocks 

 thus exposed we see the evident marks of the sliding; 

 and our eyes and minds have been so educated in the 

 observation of these appearances that we are now able 

 to detect, with certainty, icemarks, or moraines, ancient 

 or modern, wherever they appear. 



364. But the elevations at which we have found such 

 evidence might well shake belief in the conclusions to 

 which they point. Beside the Massa Gorge, at 1,000 

 feet above the present Aletsch, we found a great old 

 moraine. Descending the meadows between the Bel Alp 



