had infinitely more to do than glaciers with the fashioning of mountain-forms and valley-slopes? Who can refuse to believe that powers which are at work everywhere, which have been at work always, which are so incomparably active, capable, and enduring, must have produced greater effects than a solitary power which is always local in its influence, which has worked, comparatively, but for a short time, which is always slow and feeble in its operations, and which constantly diminishes in intensity?
Yet there are some who refuse to believe that sun, frost, and water have played an important part in modelling the Alps, and hold it as an article of their faith that the Alpine region "owes its present conformation mainly to the action of its ancient glaciers"![1]
My reverie was interrupted by Croz observing that it was time to be off. Less than two hours sufficed to take us to the glacier plateau below (where we had left our baggage); three quarters of an hour more placed us upon the depression between the Grand Cornier and the Dent Blanche (Col du Grand Cornier[2]), and at 6 p.m. we arrived at Abricolla. Croz and Biener hankered after milk, and descended to a village lower down the valley; but Almer and I stayed where we were, and passed a chilly night on some planks in a half-burnt chalet.[3]
- ↑ Professor Tyndall "On the Conformation of the Alps," Phil. Mag., Sept. 1862.
- ↑ This had been crossed, for the first time, a few months before.
- ↑ The following details may interest mountain-climbers. Left Zinal (5505 feet) 2.5 a.m. Thence to plateau S.E. of summit of Grand Cornier, 5 h. 25 min. Plateau to summit of mountain, 2½ hours. The last 300 feet of the ridge followed were exceedingly sharp and narrow, with a great cornice, from which huge icicles depended. We were obliged to go underneath the cornice, and to cut a way through the icicles. Descent from summit to plateau, 1 h. 40 min. Sharp snowstorm, with thunder. Plateau to summit of Col du Grand Cornier (rocks easy), 45 min. From the summit of the Col to the end of glacier leading to the west, 55 min. Thence to Abricolla (7959), 15 min.
