SNOW-BRIDGES. 
In ascending snowy mountains, the traveller frequently passes 
over immense fields of ice, called glaciers. These abound in cracks 
or fissures, which he has to cross over or to travel round, in his labori- 
ous journey. Sometimes the glacier is rent almost from side to side, 
and the chasm thus formed, becomes the receptacle of avalanches or 
enormous masses of ice and snow, which fall from the upper regions of 
the mountain. In their fall these masses occasionally become lodged half 
in, half out of the chasm, and thus form a bridge by which it may be 
crossed. Travellers who have reached the summit of Mont Blanc, de- 
scribe the crevices in the upper regions of that mountain as most singu- 
lar, awful, and sublime spectacles. Approaching cautiously the edge of one 
of these yawning chasms, those who have sufficient steadiness of nerve may 
look down on a gulf of unknown depth, whose lower parts are clouded in 
darkness, but whose sides display all the magnificence of icy crystalliza- 
tion, the smooth walls being covered with a net-work of hoar-frost, more 
delicate than gauze, and more varied than hangings of damask ; while 
round the edge of the chasm frequently hang the most superb icicles, 
clear as crystal. 
In the ascent to Mont Blanc is a valley or frozen lake, called the Grand 
Plateau, enclosed on three sides by mountains, and on the other by gla- 
ciers. A wide chasm separating the glacier from the Plateau has to be 
crossed by travellers, the means of communication being an immense 
mass of snow, which has become lodged in the crevice, and which serves 
the purpose of a bridge. Our engraving represents this remarkable 
bridge, and a party of travellers who had the boldness to make that 
dangerous situation their resting place, and even breakfasted on the 
bridge. One of them (Mr. Auldjo) thus describes the scene: — "While 
breakfast was preparing I could not resist the temptation of wandering 
along the edge of the crevice on the Plateau side. The depth of it was 
immense ; its great breadth affording me an opportunity of a more ac- 
curate and perfect examination than I had had before. The layers of ice 
forming the glacier, varying in colour from deep bluish-green to a silvery 
whiteness, with myriads of long clear icicles hanging from all the little 
breaks in the strata, presented a scene of the greatest beauty. From 
this point I had a view immediately under our bridge : the manner in 
which it hung suspended, with all the guides sitting on it, many hundred 
feet from the bottom of this stupendous chasm, was a beautiful and cu- 
rious, but at the same time an appalling sight. In one moment, without 
a chance of escape, the fall of the bridge might have precipitated them 
into the gulf beneath. Yet no such thought ever entered the imagi- 
nation of my thoughtless but brave guides, who sat at their meal singing 
and laughing, either unconscious or regardless of the danger of their 
present situation." 
In the awful solitudes of these mountains, the traveller feels almost 
oppressed with the sense of his own insignificance. He seems a mere 
atom, a speck in creation, and he turns with renewed gratitude to that 
revelation which assures him of the merciful regard of the Framer of all 
these wonders, who does not overlook the meanest objects, and without 
whom not even a sparrow falleth to the ground. 
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE 
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
