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SCENERY OF SWITZERLAND. 
CHAPTER V. 
ON THE FORMER EXTENSION OF GLACIERS. 
Above me arc the Alps 
The palaces of nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
And throned Eternity in icy Halls 
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow! 
All that expands the spirit, yet appals, 
Gather around these summits as to show 
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave 
vain man below. 
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage , Byron, hi. 62. 
The present scenery of Switzerland has been 
much influenced by the former extension of glaciers, 
and the fertility of the country is greatly enhanced 
by the materials which they have brought down from 
the mountains and spread over the low country. 
Several of the lakes, moreover, which add so much 
to its beauty, owe their origin to ancient moraines. 
The existence of a glacial period and the great 
former extension of the Swiss glaciers is proved by 
four lines of evidence, namely: — • 
1. Moraines and fluvio-glacial deposits. 
