540 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
The glacier descends from the snow-field, which was guessed to 
have there an elevation of about 3500 feet, to a point in the valley 
about 400 feet above the sea. The distance from the snow-field to 
the foot of the glacier looks not much more than one English 
mile — at least it is but short, compared with the rapidity of de- 
scent. Hence the glacier is steep, and in some places much cre- 
vassed. Issuing from the upper snow, in a steep, broken, and jagged 
slope of blue ice, it descends by a series of steps, till, getting com- 
pacted again in the valley below, it passes into a solid, firm glacier, 
with a tolerably smooth surface, forming a declivity of 12° or 15°. 
At a point about half a mile or less from the foot of the glacier 
the valley suddenly contracts, and the glacier, much narrowed and 
compressed, tumbles over a second steep declivity in a mass of 
broken ice. The crevasses speedily unite, and after another descent 
of 300 or 400 yards at an angle of 25°, the glacier comes to an 
end. At the point where the strangulation takes place, the glacier 
lies in a kind of basin, of which the lower lip presents proofs of the 
most intense erosion. On the western bank, in particular, a mass 
of the mountain side which projects into the ice has been ground 
away, and shows plainly enough, by its form' and stri^, that the 
glacier, ascending from the basin, has climbed up and over this bar- 
rier, so as to tumble down its northern or seaward side. 
The course of this little glacier is now too short to admit of the 
formation of moraines. Yet there are large heaps of rubbish and 
enormous masses of rock scattered over the valle}^ below, and the 
