Travels Through the Alps of Savoy and Other Parts of the Pennine Chain: With Observations on the Phenomena of Glaciers |
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Agassiz Aiguille Aiguille Verte Allée Blanche Alps amongst angle appears Argentière ascended blocks Brenva centre chain chalets Chamouni Charmoz Charpentier Col du Géant Courmayeur crevasses crossed d'Erin Dent Blanche descending direction dirt bands distance English feet Evolena fact farther fissures fluid foot friction frontal dip Glace Glacier de Léchaud Glacier du Géant glacier motion gneiss Grande Jorasse granite height higher inches inclined length LETTER ON GLACIERS limestone lower Macugnaga marked mass medial moraine Mer de Glace Mont Blanc Mont Cervin Montanvert Monte Rosa moraine mountains nearly névé observed parallel passage passed precipice promontory remarkable Rhone ridge rock Saussure Saussure's season seen side slope snow station steep stream Studer summit surface Tacul temperature theory of glaciers tion traveller traversed Trélaporte Val de Bagnes Val Ferret Val Pelline valley veined structure velocity vertical village walk weather whilst Zermatt
Popular passages
Page 388 - On its surface it bears the spoils which, during the progress of existence, it had made its own — often weighty burdens devoid of beauty or value, at times precious masses, sparkling with gems or with ore. Having at length attained its greatest width and extension, commanding admiration by its beauty and power, waste predominates over supply, the vital springs begin to fail, it stoops into an attitude of decrepitude ; it drops the burdens, one by one, which it had borne so proudly aloft : its dissolution...
Page 387 - Heaven-descended in its origin, it yet takes its mould and conformation from the hidden womb of the mountains which brought it forth. At first soft and ductile, it acquires a character and firmness of its own, as an inevitable destiny urges it on its onward career.
Page 42 - ... to the action of water. A glacier which fills up valleys in its course, and which conveys the rocks on its surface free from attrition, is the only agent we now see capable of transporting them to such a distance, without destroying that sharpness of the angles so distinctive of these masses.
Page 280 - The hands were gloved, and in the pockets, in the attitude of a person maintaining the last glow of heat, and the body being extended on the snow, which was pretty steep, it appeared that he had been hurrying towards the valley when his strength was exhausted, and he lay simply as he fell. The effect upon us all was electric ; and had not the sun shone forth in its full glory, and the very wilderness of eternal snow seemed gladdened under the serenity of such a summer's day as is rare at these heights,...
Page 162 - This condition of half illumination is far more proper for distinguishing feeble shades of colour on a very white surface like that of a glacier than the broad day. Accordingly, whilst revolving in my mind during this evening's stroll the singular problems of the ice-world, my eye was caught by a very peculiar appearance of the surface of the ice, which I was certain that I now saw for the first time. It consisted of a series of nearly hyperbolic brownish bands on the glacier, the curves pointing...
Page 383 - I have formerly given, that the motion of a glacier is actually such as I have described that of a viscid fluid to be — can leave, I think, no reasonable doubt that the crevices formed by the forced separation of a half rigid mass, whose parts are compelled to move with different velocities, becoming infiltrated with water and subsequently frozen, produce the bands which we have described.
Page 73 - Voyages, § 627. This was in 1778. But it appears that things were soon improved ; for, in one of Link's excellent coloured views (published at Geneva, and very superior to all the more recent ones), entitled, " Vue de la Mer de Glace et de 1'Hopital de Blair, du Sommet du Montanvert dans le mois d'Aoust 1781," a regularly built cabin, with a wooden roof, is represented, with this inscription above the door : — "BLAIR'S HOSPITAL.
Page 271 - It is enclosed by ridges of the most fantastic and savage grandeur, which descend from the mountains on either side of the col on which we stood, — on the...
Page 383 - ... but new, and I would not be supposed to claim that comparison or analogy as an original one. Something very like the conception of fluid motion seems to have been in the minds of several writers, although I was not aware of it at the time that I made my theory. In particular, M. Eendu, whose mechanical views are in many respects more precise than those of his predecessors or contemporaries, speaks of " glaciers d'ecoulement" as distinct from
Page 266 - ... our front. Before leaving the subject of chalets, I may observe that the character of the inhabitants is not undeserving of notice. I have always received, both in Switzerland and Savoy, a gentle, and kind, and disinterestedly hospitable reception in the chalets, on the very bounds of civilization, where a night's lodging, however rude, is an inestimable boon to a traveller. These simple people differ very much (it has struck me) from the other inhabitants of the same valleys — their own relatives,...