between two weights on a table, and then bring the weights nearer together, the paper would be crumpled up.[1]
The suggestion of compression is consistent with the main features of Swiss geography. The principal axis follows a curved line from the Maritime Alps towards the north-east by Mount Blanc, Mount Rosa, and St. Gothard, to the mountains overlooking the Engadine. The geographical strata follow the same direction. North of a line running through Chambery, Yver, Neufchatel, Solothurn, and Olten to Waldshut on the Rhine are Jurassic strata; between that line and a second nearly parallel, and running through Annecy, Vevey, Lucerne, Wesen, Appenzell, and Bregenz on the Lake of Constance, is the lowland occupied by newer Tertiary strata; between this second line and another passing through Albertville, Saint Maurice, Leuk, Meiringen, and Altdorf lie a more or less broken band of older Tertiary strata; south of which again is a cretaceous zone, and then again another of Jurassic age.
The tops of the Swiss mountains stand—probably have ever stood—above the range of ice, and hence their bold peaks. In Scotland, on the contrary, and still more in Norway, the sheet of ice which once, as is the case with Greenland now, spread over the whole country, has shorn off the summits, and reduced them almost to gigantic bosses; while in Wales the same causes, and still more the resistless action of time—for the Welsh hills are many times older than the mountains of Switzerland—has ground down the once lofty summits, and reduced them to mere stumps, such as, if the present forces are left to work out their results, the Swiss mountains will be thousands, or rather tens of thousands, of years hence.
"A glacier."
The "snow-line" in Switzerland is generally given as being between 8,500 and 9,000 feet. Above this level, the snow or "neve" gradually accumulates until it forms "glaciers"—solid rivers of ice, which descend more or less far down the valleys. No one who has not seen a glacier can possibly realise what they are like. One of the best descriptions is that given by Lord Dufferin.
"Mount Beerenberg," says Lord Dufferin, "in size, colour, and effect, far surpassed anything I had anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unexpected element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as great a volume as the Thames started down the side of a mountain, bursting over every impediment, whirled into a thousand eddies, tumbling and raging on from ledge to ledge in quivering cataracts of foam—then suddenly struck rigid by a power so instantaneous in its action that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have stiffened to the immutability of sculpture. Unless you had seen it, it would be almost impossible to conceive the strangeness of the contrast between the actual tranquillity of these silent crystal rivers and the violent descend-
- ↑ Adapted from Bull's paper on "The Formation of Alpine Valleys and Lakes," Lond. and Ed. Phil. Soc. Trans., 1863, p. 96.
