There is a river of ice in Switzerland, which, taking its rise on the
hoary summit of Mont Blanc, flows through a sinuous mountain-channel,
and terminates its grand career by liquefaction in the vale of Chamouni.
A mighty river it is in all respects, and a wonderful one--full of
interest and mystery and apparent contradiction. It has a grand volume
and sweep, varying from one to four miles in width, and is about twelve
miles long, with a depth of many hundreds of feet. It is motionless to
the eye, yet it descends into the plain continually. It is hard and
unyielding in its nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not
with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. It is _not_ a half solid
mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid,
clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks
sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids,
cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate
distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water--as if a
grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been
actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom.
It is being melted perpetually too. The fierce sun of summer sends
millions of tiny streamlets down into its interior, which collect,
augment, cut channels for themselves through the ice, and finally gush
into the plain from its lower end in the form of a muddy river. Even in
winter this process goes on, yet the ice-river never melts entirely
away, but holds on its cold, stately, solemn course from year to year--
has done so for unknown ages, and will probably do so to the end of
time. It is picturesque in its surroundings, majestic in its motion,
tremendous in its action, awful in its sterility, and, altogether, one
of the most impressive and sublime works of God.
This gigantic glacier, or stream of ice, springing, as it does, from the
giant-mountain of Europe, is appropriately hemmed in, and its mighty
force restrained, by a group of Titans, whose sharp aiguilles, or
needle-like peaks, shoot upward to a height little short of their
rounded and white-headed superior, and from whose wild gorges and riven
sides tributary ice-rivers flow, and avalanches thunder incessantly.
Leaving its cradle on the top of Mont Blanc, the great river sweeps
round the Aiguille du Geant; and, after receiving its first name of
Glacier du Geant from that mighty obelisk of rock, which rises 13,156
feet above the sea, it passes onward to welcome two grand tributaries,
the Glacier de Lechaud, from the rugged heights of the Grandes Jorasses,
and the Glacier du Talefre from the breast of the Aiguille du Talefre
and the surrounding heights. Thus augmented, the river is named the Mer
de Glace, or sea of ice, and continues its downward course; but here it
encounters what may be styled "the narrows," between the crags at the
base of the Aiguille Charmoz and Aiguille du Moine, through which it
steadily forces its way, though compressed to much less than half its
width by the process. In one place the Glacier du Geant is above eleven
hundred yards wide; that of the Lechaud is above eight hundred; that of
Talefre above six hundred--the total, when joined, two thousand five
hundred yards; and this enormous mass of solid ice is forced through a
narrow neck of the valley, which is, in round numbers, only _nine
hundred_ yards wide! Of course the ice-river must gain in depth what it
loses in breadth in this gorge, through which it travels at the rate of
twenty inches a day. Thereafter, it tumbles ruggedly to its termination
in the vale of Chamouni, under the name of the Glacier des Bois.
The explanation of the causes of the rise and flow of this ice-river we
will leave to the genial and enthusiastic Professor, who glories in
dilating on such matters to Captain Wopper, who never tires of the
dilations.
Huge, however, though this glacier of the Mer de Glace be, it is only
one of a series of similar glaciers which constitute the outlets to that
vast reservoir of ice formed by the wide range of Mont Blanc, where the
snows of successive winters are stored, packed, solidified, and
rendered, as it were, self-regulating in their supplies of water to the
plains. And the Mont Blanc range itself is but a portion of the great
glacial world of Switzerland, the area occupied by which is computed at
900 square miles. Two-thirds of these send their waters to the sea
through the channel of the Rhine. The most extensive of these glaciers
is the Aletsch glacier, which is fifteen miles in length. It is said
that above six hundred distinct glaciers have been reckoned in
Switzerland.
This, good reader, is but a brief reference to the wonders of the
glacial world. It is but a scratching of the surface. There is a very
mine of interesting, curious, and astonishing facts below the surface.
Nature is prodigal of her information to those who question her closely,
correctly, and perseveringly. Even to those who observe her carelessly,
she is not altogether dumb. She is generous; and the God of Nature has
caused it to be written for our instruction that, "His works are
wonderful, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."
We may not, however, prolong our remarks on the subject of ice-rivers at
this time. Our travellers at Chamouni are getting ready to start, and
it is our duty at present to follow them.