Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/157

 

CHAPTER X

ON SOME OF THE PHENOMENA OF GLACIERS, WITH SPECIAL
REGARD TO THOSE OF NEW ZEALAND

The cause of glaciers—Formation and structure—Motion—Moraines: Lateral, medial, and terminal—'Surface' moraines—Crevasses—Moulins—Glacier cones—Glacier tables—Surface torrents—Avalanches—Cornices

 

In a work of this nature it may not be out of place to briefly describe some of those interesting features and phenomena which accompany the world above the snow-line.

Here is a quotation from a recent review of Professor Heim's work^[1] by a prominent member of the English Alpine Club:—

'Some thirty years ago a systematic résumé of all that was known up to that date about existing glaciers appeared in the work of Professor Albert Mousson, "Die Gletscher der Jetztzeit," since which, with perhaps the exception of Major Hüber's "Les Glaciers," no attempt has been made to collect into a focus the light which numerous able observers and theorists have subsequently thrown upon the question. The intricacy of the problem has, indeed, increased almost in proportion to our enlarged knowledge of its conditions; and

1. Handbuch der Gletscherkunde, von Dr. Albert Heim, Zürich (Stuttgart: Verlag von J. Engelhorn, 1885, 18 francs.)