THE FORMATION OF GLACIERS. 
213 
deed, but little chance for the formation of gla- 
ciers, though their summits are capped with 
snow. The glaciers of the Rocky Mountains 
have been little explored, but it is known that 
they are by no means extensive. In the Pyrenees 
there is but one great glacier, though the height 
of these mountains is such, that, were the shape 
of their valleys favorable to the accumulation of 
snow, they might present beautiful glaciers. In 
the Tyrol, on the contrary, as well as in Norway 
and Sweden, we find glaciers almost as fine as 
those of Switzerland, in mountain-ranges much 
lower than either of the above-named chains. 
But they are of diversified forms, and have val- 
leys widening upward on the slope of long crests. 
The glaciers on the Caucasus are very small in 
proportion to the height of the range ; but on the 
northern side of the Himalaya there are large 
and beautiful ones, while the southern slope is 
almost destitute of them. Spitzbergen and Green- 
land are famous for their extensive glaciers, com- 
ing down to the sea-sliore, where huge masses of 
ice, many hundred feet in thickness, break off 
and float away into the ocean as icebergs. At 
the Aletscli in Switzerland, where a little lake 
lies in a deep cup between the mountains, with 
the glacier coming down to its brink, we have 
these Arctic phenomena on a small scale ; a min- 
iature iceberg may often be seen to break off from 
