GLACIAL PERIOD. 
27 
side in the Alps is inscribed with these ancient 
characters, recording the level of the ice in 
past times. Here and there a ledge or terrace 
on the wall of the valley has afforded support 
for the lateral moraines, and wherever such an . 
accumulation is left, it marks the limit of the 
ice at some former period. These indications 
are, however, uncertain and fragmentary, de¬ 
pending upon projections of the rocky walls. 
But thousands of feet above the present level 
of the glacier, far up towards their summits, 
we find the sides of the mountains furrowed, 
scratched, and polished in exactly the same 
manner as the surfaces over which the glaciers 
pass at present. These marks are as legible 
and clear to one who is familiar with glacial 
traces as are hieroglyphics to the Egyptian 
scholar; indeed, more so, — for he not only 
recognizes their presence, but reads their mean¬ 
ing at a glance. Above the line at which these 
indications cease, the edges of the rocks are 
sharp and angular, the surface of the mountain 
rough, unpolished, and absolutely devoid of all 
marks resulting from glacial action. On the 
Alps these traces are visible to a height of nine 
thousand feet, and across the whole plain of 
