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LONDON,
KLERSBUBY,
STEAM PRESS, BUC
THE GRESHAM
LL OF THE OBER GRINDELWALD GLACIER
Frontispiece
Che Oberland and its Glaciers:
EXPLORED AND ILLUSTRATED
WITH
[GH = he AND CAMERA,
BY
Bee ow CG HOG Wisse SEG.
Editor of the “ Alpine Journal.”
[ie we NitY—@IGHt J-HODOGRaArHIG |LEmanrmant onic
} i } INS NE
BY ERNEST EDWARDS, B.A.
AND A Map oF THE DBERLAND
Pondon :
ALFRED W. BENNETT, 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT.
1866.
PR eer AC I
Booxs on Alpine travel and photographs of Alpine scenery have of
late become so familiar to the public, that no suggestion for adding to
the number of either would ever have been seriously entertained, had
it not been for a belief that a new and useful combination of the two
might be made. The writer has often found that people who have
never scen a glacier, howeyer keenly they may be interested in glacier
theory for its own sake, and in mountain adventure on behalf of
their friends, are unable to obtain any clear idea of what a glacier
really is, except from elaborate vivd voce explanation of Alpine pictures.
Professor Tyndall’s ‘‘ Glaciers of the Alps,” the most lucid in style of
all works on glacier theory, was written mainly to enunciate an
entirely new doctrine, and therefore contains much of argument and
controversy, which are unnecessary for a sufficient understanding of
the subject by those who are content to take one set of opimions on
trust, without entering deeply into the controversy. Moreover no
book on glacier theory yet published contains any large number of
illustrations : they all aim chiefly at supporting by argument the views
lV PREFACE.
entertained by the author, not at presenting the phenomena of
glaciers before the eyes of the reader.
This bemg the case, the writer of the present work has thoueht
that he might serve a humble, but useful purpose, by obtaining a set
of photographs which should show as completely as possible the
nature of glaciers and their various appendages, and by writing such
an account of them as should supplement the effect of the pictures,
and enable them to speak for themselves. Being himself an implicit
believer in Professor Tyndall’s theory of glacier motion, which every-
thing he has observed during five years’ acquaintance with the Alps
has tended to confirm and illustrate, the writer has dealt with the
subject as if Tyndall’s theory were undisputed, merely making such
mention of previous opinions as seemed necessary for a proper under-
standing of the subject. In adopting this course, the writer trusts
that he will not be considered as disrespectful towards those eminent
men who haye adopted other views: his anxious desire has been to
avoid controversy, and while frankly stating his own convictions, to
abstain from advancing any arguments or opinions which are not either
universally adopted, or derived from the distinguished man whom he
is proud to acknowledge as his master in all Alpine lore.
In addition to the chapters relating entirely to the formation
and functions of glaciers, matter has been introduced of two different
kinds, which it is hoped may interest two different classes of
readers. [For the experienced Alpine climber there are narratives
of two or three ascents of some difficulty and considerable
PREFACE. AY
interest. For the less ambitious traveller there are accounts of
a few expeditions of slichter calibre, which do not seem to be
well known, and some hints which may perhaps be of service
in enabling them to see sights and enjoy pleasures usually regarded
as the exclusive property of mountaineers. There is a lex non
scripta on such matters, more or less completely understood by
the initiated, but entirely concealed from the general public, if one
may judge from the unfounded ideas usually current ; if a sinele party
of inexperienced travellers is saved from discomfort and failure,
by following the advice offered in these pages, one of the purposes
with which they were written will have been fulfilled.
Before offering to such public acceptance as it may deserve
this attempt to illustrate some of the grandest and most interesting
of natural phenomena, the writer has one task to perform, which is
at once a duty and a pleasure. He has received from Professor
Tyndall not only his chief instruction in glacier theory through
the admirable book already mentioned, but also many valuable
hints for carrying out his purpose to the best effect ; and he desires
here to acknowledge with hearty gratitude not merely the important
assistance he has thence derived, but also the kind personal interest
taken by Professor Tyndall in this humble follower of his “ Glaciers
of the Alps.”
Lei Or SeONdT EAN Ws:
CHAPTER I.
Wine SIP AN le I
Travelling companions—The party assembled—Plan of the expedition—The route
followed oe ihe a be oot ave 506 nee ae I
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS A GLACIERP
The snow line—Resemblance of a glacier to a river—Formation of neve—Super-
ficial melting —Pressure—Early glacier theories—The viscous theory—The
pressure theory—Regelation—Rate of motion of glaciers—Crevasses—An
ice-fall—Re-union—Junction of glaciers—Séracs—Marginal and longitudinal
ereyasses
CHAPTER III.
THE VUIN GE BAUS
The Jungfrau as seen from the Wengern Alp—Previous attempts—Packing up—
Ascent towards the Jungfrau Joch—An ice-slope in the dark—Bivouac on
the Schneehorn rocks—The Silber Liicke—The north-western ar¢cte—The
A furious gale on the summit—Down the south side
Wengern Jungfrau
-—Over the Ménch Joch—Caught in a thunder-storm—A rainy night on the
hill-side
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Pach
CHAPTER Iy.
GLACIER PHENOMENA
Medial and lateral moraines—Dirt cones—Glacicr tables—Water holes—Moulins
—Their formation and succession—Secondary glaciers—Glucieis remaniés—
Appearance of the veined structure—Its cause and diveetion—Corresponding
lines on the surface 54.
CHAPTER Y.
Wine JENS IMME IE Ir.
Special beauties of the Eismeer—The glacier issuing from it—Explorations across
the lower portion—Days spent on the ice—An aerial mirage—aA pienic beside
the glacier—Mountain walking—The lady’s golden rule—Over-fatigue 77
CHAPTER VI.
De ee EAU Ee ReAVAGR LOR Girie
Sunset at Grindelwald—Charms of the Wetterhorn—Nature of the aseent—A new
t walk to the Gleckstein—The cave
way up—Quitting Grindelwald—A hi
s—On the Lauteraar Joch—A ditheult
and its comforts—The upper snow-field
descent—Almer’s generalship—Down to the Grimsel 95
CHAPTER VII.
THE AAR PAVILION.
A promising messenger—Halt at the Pavilion—Its accommodation and contents—
Amateur cookery—Return to the Abschwung—A gigantic glacier table—
View of the Finsteraarhorn—Fresh arrivals—An eyening party at the
TI4
Payilion—An ice fountain—Alpine bivouacs ...
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PANORAMIC SUMMITS.
Succession of mountain views—The Schilthorn—The Lauberhorn—The Faulhorn
—The Sidelhorn—Across the watershed—The Aiggischhorn and Mirjelen
See—The Sparrenhorn—The Torrenthorn—Detailed view of the Oberland
mountains—Other panoramic summits
CHAPTER IX.
Tine Nie Sa rOiRINe
The last new peak—Starting in the dark—Level basin of the Ober Aletsch glacier
—The great curtain from the Beichgrat to the Nesthorn—aA steep ascent—
Along the ridge to a sham peak—Vent, vidi, vici—Diyersions on the summit
—Magnificence of the view—Fixing the flag—Mountain music—A prosperous
descent
CHAPTER X.
Wislis Eiki Ai Te AN O) WP Si INE CHa is hens sl 6)16) }B) -
‘The Bell Alp inn—View over the Pennine range—Sunrise and sunset—Collecting
the flocks
the Great Aletsch glacier—Direct route from Lax to the Bell Alp via the
A colloquy on the housetop—The gorge of the Massa—Foot of
Martinsberg Alp—Exeursion up the Ober Aletsch glacier—Four cross roads
—tThe Beicherat
CHAPTER XI.
THE PLEASURES AND DANGERS OF THE ALPS.
Unintelligent travelling—Special features of the two Grindelwald glaciers—The
Aar glacier
The Rhone glacier—The Great and Ober Aletsch glaciers—
How glaciers terminate—Mountain scenery—The dangers of the high Alps,
properly and improperly so called—Reasonable precautions—The climbing
spirit
PAGE
163
x TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER XII.
THE G@SCHINEN SEE AND STEINBERG ALP.
The Cischinen See—Dispersion of the party—Christian’s dog ‘'schingel—Over
the Tschingel Pass—The Steinberg Alp—The Schmadribach—Dinocle—
“Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height ” hei 4s ele)
CHAPTER XIII.
TEE UNC OMNIS Ol Ra iG SAIC Eines:
Benefits of the Alps—Action of primeval glaciers—Ancient striations opposite the
Grimsel—Fresh striations beside the Unter Grindelwald glacier—Erosion—
Surface streams—A typical instance—The three great natural agents—Their
working among the Alps—Manifestations of Divine power—Forbes’ compari-
son of a glacier to human life ... oo ae fi le oo . 216
NOTES BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER
is)
~
LIS
OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS.
UPPER ICK-FALL OF THE OBER GRINDELWALD GLACIER see sir eee eee Frontispiece
PEAKS ON A CLOUDY DAY... eon see avis tee ae sata ave Litle-paye
ON THE UNTER GRINDELWALD GLACIER eas: see 55 ane see Lo face page
wn
GLACIER MOTION—ICE AND ROCK re aia oan ae wen aes eee 2
THE RHONE GLACIER ... toe ane tee tee Poi) ive ce eee wee 23
WAVED SURFACE OF THE AAR GLACIER ,..
ICE-NEEDLES—UNTER GRINDELWALD GLACIER eee see os ene eee ae 27
THE JUNGFRAU JocH apie sat aor Bb0 ae Bae pan och S00 37
MEDIAL MORAINE ON THE OBER ALETSCH GLACIER wee see rig wes see 57
A DIRT-CONE son Bab ace noe ao ond not gan fa6 ies 59
A GLACIER TABLE Bf ot fan oan toe Bo re aoe A
AN ACTIVE MOULIN a a0 ere oe éo6 aes
AN EXTINCT MOULIN ... coo sei as wee abG 306 eos
4 GLACIER REMANID fs a a ee oy ba es te a 70
THE VIESCHERHORNER FROM THE EISMEER PATH ... see ave one eee ee 7°
oO
J
FINAL FALL OF THE UNTER GRINDELWALD GLACIER ase eee ase vee ave
XH LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PHM LAUCTERAAR JOCH FROM THE ABSCHWUNG
\ GLACIER FOUNTAIN
YHE OBER ALELTSCH GLACIER FROM THE SPARRENHORN
YH IBERLAND MOUNTAINS FROM THE TORRENTHORS
YHE NESTHORN FROM THE OBER ALETSCIL GLACIER
FHE GORGE IF THE MASSA aoe see aoe
JON-PEAK—OBER ALETSCIL GLACIER
Pill QSCHINEN SEK AND BLUMLIS ALP
STRIATIONS OPPOSITE THE GRIMSEL
STRIATIONS BESIDE THE UNTER GRINDELWALD GLACIER
GLACIER STREAM ON THE EISMEER
PRRMINAL CAVE OF THE UNTER GRINDELWALD GLACIER
MAP OF THE BERNESE OBERLAND
PAGE
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to
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To face page
OBERLAND.
4
4
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ae Ze
CHAPTER I.
THE START.
Ye are bound for the mountains—
With you let me go,
Where the cold distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air—
How deep is the
Ah! would I were there—M. Arnoup.
stillness ;
T is a popular fiction that nothing is so difficult to find as a good
travelling companion, and that unless the utmost care be taker
beforehand in this respect, every tour is sure to be a failure.
Allthe good qualities which the Baron of Triermain expected in his
bride would not be too numerous for the exacting gentlemen who
state their views on this subject in print. Possibly they might
dispense with some of the personal charms which Sir Roland
required, and which being a hero of romance he found in King Arthur’s
daughter, on condition of the paragon whom they honour with their
company being acquainted with all the languages of Hurope, and two
infallible preservatives against the attack of fieas, that terror of all
‘ B
2 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.
stay-at-home tourists. On the other hand practical experience seems
re mortals, possessed of a common love for their
objects of travel, will suit one another very fairly as compagnons de
to show that aver:
voyage, even if they meet casually as total strangers in a railway
carriage or at a mountain inn.
Té must be admitted that the facility with which persons, united by
so faint a tie, can obtain release from the bonds of companionship
tends to make the yoke sit lightly on their shoulders ; and few would
be willing to start deliberately for a long tour with a comrade not
known to be in some respects congenial, however ready they might be
to join some chance associate after starting alone. To choose one’s
companion beforehand, and arrange in concert the plan of the journey,
is the safest and pleasantest way of domg business: but if this is
for any reason impossible, no traveller need fear long remaining
solitary against his will, or failing to find agreeable company on his
age
way. A comrade picked wp by chance may possibly prove a rare
re the lots drawn out of
13)
prize, or a decided failure; but on the ave
da
the wheel of fortune will prove something better than blanks.
It is otherwise where a large party intends travelling together for
any length of time. The amount of trouble and arrangement requisite
for every single movement is sufficient soon to convert their progress
into a mere scramble, unless it is fully understood that some one
consideration shall be paramount, or some one person be invested with
the task of directing the whole. It is useless to lay down an
elaborate scheme by common consent; for the chances of travel, bad
ys or miscalculation of distances,
weather or fatigue, incidental del:
will infallibly reduce this to a chaos, and the whole work has to be
reconstructed continually, with perpetual risk of disagreement. But
if there be a central point of some kind, whether person or thing,
some authority recognised as superior, the party becomes an organized
THE CAMERA. 3
whole at once; while a large number has the further advantage that
they can always agree to differ for a short space. If there are three
eligible routes between two given places, it is hard indeed if one out
of a party of nie or ten cannot find a second person to share his
preference in favour of any one of them, and separating from the
remainder for a day or so, rejoin them, to their mutual benefit in
the way of comparing notes.
Ag, in working some mathematical problem, one at first assumes the
nN
moving body to be a particle without weight or size, and having
calculated its course, applies the corrections required to suit the
condition of the body actually moving, so we assume at the outset that
each member of the travelling party is an atom self-contained and
independent. Should the company comprise ladies, who will
naturally belong in some way or other to the different gentlemen, the
conditions of motion of the whole will be so materially complicated,
that we may decline to work out the problem, but confidently leave
it to solve itself ambulando.
At the end of August, 1865, there congregated at Grindelwald a
party whose heterogeneous materials were united by a central element
into a manageable and concordant whole, and whose movements were
conducted on the principle of occasional divergence and reunion
already referred to. The centre around which all else revolved was a
photographic camera, and it was understood at starting that all other
considerations must yield to the imperative requirements of business.
The camera and its necessary attendants im fact constituted head-
quarters, and moyed in accordance with a previously decided plan of
operations ; and the mancuvres of all other components of the party
were reculated accordingly.
The photographer himself may appropriately be designated by the
Fenian title of Head Centre, since he supplied the brains to our
a THE PARTY ASSEMBLED
material centre, the camera, and with the two ladies accompanying
him constituted the largest section of the party. Two gentlemen, each
with a lady under his charge, described somewhat irregular orbits
round our travelling focus; one of whom, in order to temper the
extreme confidence of his neighbours, constituted himself croaker in
ordinary
a most enviable post, since it ensured him the gratification
of being successful either in his prophecy or in his undertakings.
Two other gentlemen, qualified to advertise themselves as ‘without
encumbrances,’ completed the number, one of whom was director-
general of the movements of the camera, and consequently manager
of the entire party, and the other his counsellor and occasional
substitute in the task of superintending operations.
A despotism, tempered by the necessity not only of providing for
all its subjects, but of explaining everything to their satisfaction, is
by no means a sinecure ; and the burdens entailed by it on the victim
who found himself in effect courier to a party of nine persons, would
not have sat so lightly upon him, had he not fortunately secured one
of the best guides in Switzerland, Christian Almer of Grindelwald,
who combines with first-rate mountaineering skill the most perfect
readiness to undergo any trouble for the convenience of his Herrschaft.
Almer being accompanied by his son Ulrich (a boy of sixteen, whose
chief duties were to carry the legs of the camera everywhere, and to
keep its master supplied with water), and the other guide of the party
bearing the very similar name of Von Almen, all three were called
habitually by their Christian names, to avoid confusion.
Instead however of dwelling any further on the individual
members of the party, we may introduce them to the reader in bodily
presence, assembled on the edge of the Unter Grindelwald glacier.
The only absentees are the photographer himself, who found it
impossible to be in two places at once, and Fritz yon Almen, who
IN PROPRIIS PERSONIS. 3)
with great skill shifted his position at the critical moment behind one
of the others, so that a leg only is visible.
Tn honour of the assembling of the entire party, the skies poured a
libation which lasted for several days, broken only by an interval
ON THE UNTER GRINDELWALD GLACIER.
during which G—— and Christian Almer detached themselves to
ascend the Jungfrau, and the remainder made a somewhat unsuccess-
ful pilgrimage to Miiren. The bad weather was not without the
advantage of enabling everyone to grow accustomed to the ways of
everyone else, but was trying to the patience of those who
remembered that while the photographic art is long, the lite of
an Alpine summer is short. The Adler Hotel at Grindelwald is an
6 THE ADLER HOTEL.
admirable one in all respects but one—it scarcely possesses a book, a
very serious exception in wet weather. One day somebody announced
that she had ferreted out an odd yolume of a work entitled ‘ Christian’s
Mistake ;” but it was so obvious that Christian, at least our
Christian, was incapable of such a thing, that we voted the discovery
a delusion. There were cards however for the evenings; and there
was lmeheon, a most useful institution under the circumstances,
especially at the Adler, where bread, butter and honey are all
perfect: and gradually the last days of August rolled away, until the
first dawn of September ushered in a cloudless month.
Just about the time at which in England the first unfortunate
partridges were falling victims, our camera began to bag its game at
the foot of the Grindelwald glacier; and the work was continued
with uninterrupted success, until the last days of the month brought
us with happy coincidence to the close of our task, and to the end of
our stock of plates.
The scheme with which we started was a simple one, and, thanks
to the perfect weather, was carried out with tolerable completeness.
We were to travel round the Oberland, commencing from Tauter-
brunnen and Grindelwald, and thence working to the head of the Valais,
were to make our way along its northern slopes, returning into Berne
by the Gemmi. As many days as might prove necessary were to be
spent in photographing on the various glaciers; and the experience of
several previous seasons was brought to bear in determining before-
hand the localities to be the most carefully explored, and the objects
to be kept specially im view in each expedition. Further, the centle-
men were to seize such opportunities as might offer themselves for
climbing high peaks, or crossing glacier passes; and all, ladies
included, were to ascend as many of the minor mountains as might
prove convenient. We thus hoped not merely to make a tour complete
THE ROUTE. 7
in itself, though of no great duration, but also, by confining our
attention to one district, to obtain a full and tolerably minute
acquaintance with it, none of our time being wasted in long migrations
from one centre of interest to another.
The map will show the routes actually followed, the continuous
lack line indicating the movements of the camera, and the dotted
ine the excursions of different sections of the party on their own
account. It is founded on the excellent government map of
Switzerland, with one or two small corrections supplied from our
own actual observations. The mountain chains and glaciers are shown
with some minuteness, but the minor ridges enclosing the lateral
valleys &c. are merely indicated, with no pretensions to detailed
accuracy. The nomenclature is that which has been recently adopted
by the Swiss government, on the recommendation of a committee
of the Swiss Alpine Club, specially appointed to examine and correct
the nomenclature of the Oberland. In the forthcoming new edition
of the sheet contaiming the lower half of the Oberland the names will
appear as im this one, but no map contaming these undoubted
improvements has as yet been published.
The glaciers of the Oberland are very varied in their character, and
the surrounding mountains so magnificent that there could be no fear
of our losing interest in the scenery, while devoting our thoughts
primarily to the diverse features of the glaciers themselves. Not only
does the Oberland contain every type and size of glacier, from the
Great Aletsch, unequalled in the whole range of the Alps, down to the
tiny Maing glacier, which lies like a mere patch on the side of the
Torrenthorn; but every phenomenon which has been observed,
whether in the actual formation of the ice-streams, or in their effects
and operations, is to be seen in perfection somewhere among the
Oberland glaciers. Stronely persuaded of this, which turned out to
8 SCHEME PROPOSED.
be a well-grounded anticipation, we determined to seek out in the
Oberland, and as far as possible on certain selected glaciers, especially
that of the Aar, the Ober Aletsch, and the two descending into the
valley of Grindelwald, such a series of pictures as would give a
tolerably clear and connected view of the origin and course of
glaciers in general, and of the remarkable objects to be observed
upon them.
The shortness of September days, and the difficulty of conveying
the necessary quantity of water above the snow line, prevented our
exploring at all fully the phenomena of the everlasting snow fields, or
carrying the camera, as we had once hoped to do, to the summit of
some important peak. But the glaciers, properly so called, were
nore within reach of our resources; and if we have failed to bring
>
way sufficient and satisfactory pictures of all that calls for special
>
ttention upon them, the fault lies with our own want of skill, or with
the imperfections from which the photographic art is no more free
than its compeers.
The further objects of our tour were also carried out with tolerable
success; and the necessities of our main purpose led us to make
many excursions in a novel manner, which may perhaps prove worthy
of imitation. But before proceeding to describe any of these we must,
in order that their meaning and interest may be more fully appreciated,
attempt to give some sort of answer to the preliminary question,
‘What is a glacier ?”
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS A GLACIER ?
Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts
Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked
Than water interfused to make them one.—Cowprrr.
O popular phrase is more essentially false than ‘‘the regions of
eternal frost,” a term of tenemployed as a poetical synonyme
for the higher portions of the Alps, where snow lies all the
year through. Thesun’srays have power to melt the snow there, as at
lower elevations, and do in fact melt a very appreciable proportion of
that which falls on the topmost pinnacles. The less the distance
above the level of the sea, the higher on the average will be the
temperature, and the greater therefore the fusion of the snow
that falls in the winter; and a gradually increasing proportion of
it will be found to disappear as we come lower down the mountain
c
10 THE SNOW LINE.
side, until at length a line is reached where the amount that falls
annually is just melted annually, below which the earth is during
some portion of the-year bare of snow. ‘This level, which is called
the ‘snow line,” will of course vary from place to place, and from
year to year, according to accidental circumstances, such as
the direction in which the mountain slopes, exposing it more
or less to the sun’s influence, and the fluctuations of the weather.
But on the average the snow line may be drawn in the Alps at about
8,500 feet; and of the snow that falls above this elevation only part
will be directly melted by the sun.
What then becomes of the snow which falls in these high regions?
For as the mountains do not in fact grow in heicht, nor the hollows
netween the peaks become more filled up, the surplus snow must be
removed by some continuous natural agency. The avalanches which
e of the mountains, where
fall in spring bring down a little to the ba
it is melted together with the native snows, so to speak, of the valleys ;
though, im consequence of the force with which it is compacted together
in the fall, beds of avalanche snow are often found to withstand the
reat nearly a whole summer. But the relicf gained in this way is
slight compared with the immense masses of snow deposited far from
any precipice; and incomparably the most important agents in
freeing the mountains from their burden of snow are the glaciers.
The outward analogy between a glacicr and a river is so marked,
and the phenomena attending the motion of a glacier down a valley
are really so similar to those of a river flowing along its channel, that
it is scarcely possible to speak of a glacier without using terms which
apply originally to the flow of a liquid stream. A glacier 7s in truth
a river of ice, having its source in some field of everlasting snow, and
its termination deep down in some valley, far below the snow line,
where in melting it becomes in its turn the source of some river of
A RIVER OF ICE. 11
waters. The motion of the ice has been carefully measured on various
glaciers, and at different times of the year, and not only does the rate
of motion vary in different glaciers in proportion* to the inclinations
of their beds—just as a mountain torrent differs in speed from a river
whose sluggish current is barely perceptible—but different parts of the
same glacier move at various rates, the centre more quickly than the
sides, and the surface more quickly than the bottom, laws which are
also found to hold good with regard to running water. Moreover
“the point of swiftest motion’? on a line drawn across the
glacier ‘‘follows the same law as that observed in the flow of
rivers, shifting from one side of the centre to the other as the flexure
of the valley changes.’’+
It may also be noted that it is usual in describing the neigh-
bourhood of a glacier, to speak of its right or left bank, precisely
as in the case of a river, meaning thereby the bounding ridge
on the right or left-hand of an observer looking down the glacier.
The reader who has never seen a glacier will find illustrations of
its river-like flow in the foregrounds of the first pictures in
Chapters VY. and VIII.
An illustration is given on the next page of a phenomenon not unfre-
quently found at the edge of a glacier, which shows the motion of the ice
so clearly, that the eye of imagination can almost see it move. The ice
which forms the upper and left-hand portion of the picture was once
in contact with the rock, and in its advance still retains the form to
which it was moulded by that contact ; the concave outline of the ice
* It is hardly necessary to add that this is only one among seyeral causes which
combine to determine the rate of motion of each glacier.
+ Tyndall’s ‘‘ Glaciers of the Alps,” p. 423.
12 A GLACIBR CAVERN.
GLACIER MOTION—ICE AND ROOK,
precisely coinciding with the convex shape of the rock, some slight
allowance being made for subsequent superficial melting of the ice.
The fact that a clacier does really move like a river, and that the
analogy which suggests itself to every observer on first beholding a
glacier is not merely fanciful but true and close, has been established
SNOW CHANGING TO ICE. 13
beyond the possibility of doubt by the successive labours of scientific
men, all of whom agree in their opinions so far, however they may
differ in respect of other topics arising out of the theory of glaciers.
But the further questions immediately suggest themselves : first, how
does the snow which falls high among the mountains become
converted into ice; and secondly, what is the force capable of making
solid ice thus flow in streams down the valleys? The same agency
will be found to have mainly conduced to the attainment of both
results, but in a somewhat different manner; and it becomes con-
sequently necessary to discuss each question separately.
How then does the powdery snow, which once fell on the mountain
top, become transformed into hard and perfectly solid ice,* such as it
appears to be at the foot of the glacier? Snow is, as everyone
knows, nothing more or less than frozen water, that is to say ice,
but in an outwardly different form. A flake of snow consists in
fact of minute particles of ice, so loosely jomed together that a
ereat proportion of air is enclosed in their interstices, which causes
the snow, in its own ice-particles necessarily transparent, to appear
white and opaque. This white appearance results from an established
law of light; and a more familiar illustration of the same law may
be found in rock-salt, or carbonate of soda, which in the lump is
transparent, but when reduced to powder is white. Similarly a lump
of ice, if scraped, becomes an opaque powder, closely resembling fine
snow. The change in colour which snow undergoes in becoming ice,
is precisely the converse of the change undergone by the salt on being
scraped into powder; and hence we may naturally infer the nature
of the actual change in the substance. All the air which originally
* See the ice in the photograph on the opposite page, which was taken very near
the foot of the Unter Grindelwald glacier.
14 SUPERFICIAL MELTING.
was mixed with the particles of ice to compose snow is expelled, and
there being nothing left but the ice, the mass is of course transparent.
Two agencies operate to remove the air from amid the snow, one
of which, the earliest to act on it, and the least powerful m its effects,
has been already mentioned in another connection. The sun, as has
been said, melts during the summer the surface of the snow, and the
water thus formed penetrates downwards into the mass, warming the
snow as it passes through it, but at the same time losing part of its
own volume, which is frozen on to the tiny grains of snow, thus increas-
ing their size, and uniting several of them into one larger grain. As
this process is continued day by day and year by year, the lower
layers of the snow lose more and more air, and the whole mass
becomes less in bulk, but much more dense, the upper surface having
in fact by the process described been transferred downwards, and
made to fill up the interstices in the lower parts. In this condition
it closely resembles m appearance a mass of small hailstones frozen
together, and is usually known by the French term névé, or sometimes
by the equivalent German name firn. Though this process of super-
ficial melting, and subsequent refreezing of the water so produced, is
capable of transforming snow into névé, yet it is ineffective to
produce the further change into genuine ice. A good instance of
the utmost change which can be wrought by this means alone may
be found in the small Maing glacier, on the north side of the
Torrenthorn, which appears m the foreground of the view from that
mountain given in Chapter VIII. Its upper portion, which is
plainly exposed to very little influence of any other sort, is névé
of an unusually solid kind, and has lost, as completely as the surface
of most glaciers very far from their origin, the brilliant white colour
which belongs to snow, and which gradually dies out as the substance
crows less and less like what it originally was.
PRESSURE. 15
But there is another and far more important agent at work,
namely Pressure, which materially helps in converting snow into
névé, and does the whole of the work necessary for further changing
névé into the true ice of the glacier. The superincumbent mass by
its weight keeps up a constant pressure on the lower layers of snow,
squeezing the air out of them at the same time that the water from
above is trickling through, and depositing fresh ice over the surface
of the grains already formed. And the pressure is applied not only
vertically by the weight of the mass above, but laterally from the
sides of the valley through which the glacier flows, and from the
snows which, accumulating behind, force the glacier down, as we
shall see presently is the case. This process, continued throughout
the whole length of a glacier, finally expels all the air, and brings
she ice to a state of perfect transparency. The sight however of
the lower end of a glacier is apt to disappoint the traveller, unless
he approaches near enough to examine the ice closely, or penetrates
into one of the caves which usually are found at the foot of a glacier,
and form the source out of which rushes the nascent river. The
upper surface of the ice has necessarily been exposed to comparatively
little pressure, and is constantly being disintegrated by the sun,
besides being strewn with dirt, through the operation of causes not
yet referred to. Thus it is impossible for any pictures of the end
of a glacier to convey an idea of the perfect clearness and exquisite
beauty of the ice.
It has already been observed incidentally that pressure is the agent
which drives glaciers down the valleys; and though much contro-
versy has arisen as to the causes which govern the motion of a
glacier when formed, yet it will be allowed by all alike that pressure,
in the weight of accumulating snows, forces out the lower portions
of the mass, and compels them to find place for themselves in
16 WHY A GLACIER TERMINATES.
whatever direction they can escape, which will obviously be where
valleys open downwards from the great reservoirs of néyé. Streams
of ice thus started flow down valleys of every imaginable shape and
size, and of constantly varying width and inclination, accommodating
themselves accurately to every change in the form of their bed, and
always preserving their continuity. Below the snow line, where the
sun during some portion of the year has power to melt their true
surface, no longer hidden beneath a cloak of fresh fallen snow, they
begin to diminish in thickne and this wasting away proceeds with
increasing rapidity as the glacier descends further, until at length a
point is reached where the amount of ice pushed down from behind is
not more than the sun can melt, and there the glacier terminates.
The glacier as a whole, it has been said, preserves its continuity
throughout ; that is to say, it is never found actually riven into two
separate parts. But its substance nevertheless is seen to be cleft
and broken at different parts of its course by fissures of very various
size, shape and direction, which are termed crevasses ; and it 1s
mainly upon the observation of the manner in which these crevasses
are formed, and of the relation they bear to the changing conditions
of the glacier’s bed, that the theories have been founded which have
successively professed to explain the causes of glacier motion.
Before therefore entering into any description of the various kinds
of crevasses, which mainly contribute to the beauty of the glaciers
they intersect, it will be desirable briefly to state the chief theories
that have been adopted, and especially that of Professor Tyndall,
which in the eyes of the great majority of scientific men has
distinctly superseded all others.
The earliest attempts at forming a glacier theory were made in the
last century, and before Englishmen had begun to interest them-
selyes in the matter. The first of these, suggested by Scheuchzer
THE VISCOUS THHORY. 17
so long ago as 1705, but generally associated with the name
of Charpentier, was that the freezing and consequent expansion
of water within the glacier furnished the foree which urged the
glacier downwards; but even if this were sufficient to account
for the phenomena, subsequent experiments have supplied proofs
that such freezing does not take place to any great extent.
Another theory, bearing the honoured name of De Saussure, was
that the glacier simply slid oyer its bed, a proposition which is true
up to a certain point, but only removes the difficulty a step further off.
The first Englishman who deyoted any time and thought to the
study of glaciers was Professor J. D. Forbes, then an ornament
of the Edinburgh University, but now Principal of St. Andrew’s.
He was the first to make trustworthy and systematic measure-
ments of the motion of glaciers, and to prove beyond question
that the ice-stream does really move in very close analogy to
a river. rom this demonstrated similarity, which has scarcely
been disputed simce, and the facts of which have been followed
out still more minutely by subsequent observers, Professor
Forbes founded his celebrated theory, that a glacier is an imperfect
fluid, or viscous body, and that its motion is caused by the laws
which govern all such bodies. A more admirable illustration of the
nature of glacier motion could not be found than this comparison
with a stream of honey, lava, or tar; but it is so obvious that ice in
nall portions is not only not viscous, but is a remarkably brittle
solid, that the analogy between the substances breaks down, what-
ever the resemblance that undoubtedly exists between their modes of
motion. This theory was the subject of much controversy, and
many able areuments were set up for and against it ; but on the whole
the balance of opinion seemed to tend in favour of Professor Forbes’
theory, in spite of the difficulty admitted by himself, that viscosity
D
18 THE PRESSURE TITEORY.
could not be traced in the icy fragments of a glacier, any more than
in ordinary lake ice.
In 1856 Professor Tyndall was induced by other considerations to
turn his attention to the Alps and their glaciers, and in the course of
a few seasons not only made himself practically acquainted with all
7
|
{
the phenomena of glaciers, and became one of the boldest and most
kalful chimbers in Eneland, but also executed a series of measure-
nm
ments, which added much to the foundation laid by Forbes. Out of
these observations, with the aid of experiments at home, he
slaborated a theory of glacier motion, simple, complete, and not
o
only consistent with all observed facts, but capable of explaining
m
ha
Ba
them satisfactorily. This theory he gave to the world in “
Glaciers of the Alps,” one of the most delightful books that ever
appeared on a scientific subject, which has practically become the
]
laciers since the
text-book for all who have taken up the study of ¢
date of its publication.
Tyndall’s theory may be summed up in the single word Pressure.
He shows conclusively that ice, though it is incapable of yielding in
any perceptible degree to tension or strain, yields to pressure in a
most marvellous manner, and can in fact be moulded by means of
pressure skilfully applied into any conceivable shape. It must not
be supposed, however, that the ice does not break under pressure; on
] posed vever, that tl loes not break under pressur
he contrary, it is broken in every direction, but re-unites itself by
t] trary, it is brol y direction, but re-unites itself by
virtue of the remarkable principle discovered by Faraday, and now
t f the remarkable primciple discovered by Faraday, and now
termed Revelation.
This property of ice, which is in fact if not in theory familiarly
known to every one, is that when two pieces of ice with moistened
surfaces come in contact, they become united by the freezing of the
thin film of water between them, though no such result follows the
contact of two pieces of dry ice. Every snowball depends for its
REGELATION, 19
formation on regelation, the moist particles of snow freezing solidly
together in consequence of being pressed into contact: andif the
pressure applied be tolerably severe, so as to squeeze out most of the
air and bring the particles into very close contact, the snowball becomes
semi-transparent, and in fact imperfect ice. On the same principle
depends the fact that in general the nearer the temperature approaches
to the freezing-point during a snow-storm the larger will be the flakes,
and the lower the temperature the smaller they will be. The flakes
are of course formed above the earth, where we cannot observe the
temperature, and other agencies, such as wind, doubtless tend to
prevent or assist their formation : but on the average the law indicated
holds good, and depends on the fact that at the freezing-point each
flakelet will be just beginning to melt, will therefore have moistened
surfaces, and will consequently adhere by regelation to any other that
comes in contact with it. Anotherand somewhat destructive instance
of the working of regelation may perhaps be remembered by some
readers. During the first heavy snow-storm of last winter, the telegraph
wires in many places about London were torn down by the weight of
the snow which became attached to them. Throughout the fall the
temperature of the air was never much below the freezing-point, and
was sometimes above it: thus the conditions were most favourable for
the building up of masses of snow by regelation, and the snow grew
round the telegraph wires until im some places they were coated
as thick as a man’s wvist, and in other places they broke beneath
the load.
The origin of regelation itself—that is to say, the physical cause
which produces the observed phenomena—cannot be said to haye been
yet satisfactorily decided, two rival theories being supported by high
scientific authority. Professor James Thomson refers regelation to
the mutual pressure of the two pieces of ice; Faraday, the original
20 HOW REGELATION WORKS.
discoverer, toa mutual action between the ice and the film of water,
inducing the crystallization of the latter. Experiments have been
made which would almost seem to demonstrate the insutfi-
a
qency of Thomson's theory; on the other hand Faraday’
explanation, if correct, still requires to be carried a step further.
indubitable,
But whatever the cause of regelation may be, the fact is
and a knowledge of it is essential to a clear understanding of glacier
motion.
Moisture being necessary to regelation, bemg in fact the cement
with which the pieces of ice are united, it is only when the iceis ata
temperature of 32°, or just beginning to melt, that regelation can
take place, unless the surfaces of ice be extrancously moistened. At
that temperature also ice can be crushed with facility by the application
of a moderate pressure, whereas when colder it is much harder. Such
experiments as have been made tend to show that the interior of a
elacier is always at or near the freezing-point, at least in summer:
and this belief is supported by other considerations, drawn from the
observed facility with which the glacier as a whole yields to pressure,
and from the known powers of ice in respect of conducting and
absorbing heat. Thus the ice of a elacier is brought by the operation
g g j I
of totally independent causes into the precise condition most favourable
for its being moulded under the influence of pressure and regelation.
There is no waste of those forces in overcoming resistance, arising
from the ice not being in the fittest state for their application.
The rate at which a glacier moves is determined by the simultaneous
working of a variety of causes, more or less independent of each
other, such as the shape of the valley, its inclination, the amount of
névé exerting a pressure from behind, and the changes of the seasons
and weather, all of which vary infinitely in themselves. Thus it is
impossible to obtain any definite law, whereby we can discover the
RATE OF MOTION. mall
rate of motion through knowledge of the various conditions affecting the
glacier. Actual observations have however determined the rates at
which numerous glaciers move in summer, and one or two such
measurements have been made in winter; and though the results are,
as might be expected, by no means uniform, yet it may safely be said
that very few glaciers move faster than 700 feet per annum, while
many advance much more slowly.
The winter rate is on the average half that in summer, though the
observations made in winter have been too few to determine whether
the glacier ever moves at any much slower pace. It will naturally
ye asked why the motion varies with the seasons—why, since the
pressure from behind must always be kept wp, the glacier does not
move uniformly. The explanation is to be found in the very fact
which accounts for the fullest and most complete motion. In summer
he ice, as has been already mentioned, is throughout at a temperature
of 82°, in which condition the ice is most readily crushed and regela-
tion can work most effectually. In winter the surface and the mass
of the glacier, to a depth necessarily unknown, are frozen to a much
lower temperature; the ice is consequently harder, and does not
yield so readily to the pressure exerted upon it. Moreover the under
surface of the ice is melted in summer by its contact with the warm
earth, and the streams of water thus formed act like grease to
diminish the friction and facilitate the sliding of the glacier oyer its
bed: in winter on the contrary no such melting takes place, and the
amount of friction is far greater, whereby the rate of motion is con-
siderably diminished.
It will now be easy to trace the course of a glacier, the manner in
which the crevasses, of various kinds, are formed and obliterated, and
the processes by which the internal texture of the ice is modified. We
have already seen that in its descent from the snow reservoirs high
22, CREYVASSES.
radually
hat this
change is due to pressure from various directions. Concerning the
among the mountains, the substance of a glacier becomes ¢
4
L
denser, and is transformed from névé into actual ice, and
mode of this transformation something more must be said in the
3)
sequel: but since the phenomena of crevasses are the same at all
stages, and no definite poimt can be fixed at which the névé may be
said to become ice, it will be desirable, in order to avoid confusion, to
make use of one term only, while speaking of the substance of the
,
glacier, merely premising that what is said of ice is equally true of
1évé, unless special exception is made.
The conception of a river of ice, which has been set before the
ing the best idea of the nature of glacier motion, will
te}
‘eader as @iy
robably have suggested a steady and equable flow down a channel
of tolerably uniform inclination ; and hitherto there has been no
occasion to Sst any diver
gence from this pattern, to which in
=
s conform. But now we must begin to consider the
fact many glac
effects which will be produced by variations in the width, steepness
and direction of the valley formime the glacier’s bed. To fix our
thoughts, let us imagine a glacier starting out of a huge reservoir of
néyé, driven down by the pressure of the mass behind it, and flowing
in the only channel which affords it room to escape. What will
happen when the glacier, after flowing gently down for some distance
from its parent basin, reaches the brow of a steep declivity, due to a
ereat and sudden change in the inclination of the valley which contains
it? The front portion of the ice, beimg thrust over the edge, and
being unable to resist the strain caused by its own almost unsupported
it, breaks across the brow. But in consequence of the upper
part of the ice moving more quickly than that near its bed, the crack
will not penetrate through the entire mass. As the top of the slice
thus partially detached is tilted forwards, the bottom of it will be
§o end aonf og,
NBIOV1O SNOHY SHL
AN ICE-FALL. 23
pressed more violently than ever against the ice behind; and so the
slice, never totally divided from the remainder, is gradually pushed
down the slope. Very soon another portion of the surface reaches the
brow, is similarly broken and driven downwards, and so on in endless
succession. Human eye has of course never seen the beginning of
such an infinite series of ice-waves, but the only difference between
the first wave and any subsequent one arises from the latter en-
countering at the bottom of the descent the resistance of its pre-
decessors, which having reached a more gentle slope are again moving
forward as above the steep fall.
There is nothing more wonderfully beautiful in the whole range
of glacier phenomena than the sight of one of these ice-falls,
as they are most appropriately termed. The number of them
is of course extremely great, the same glacier often possessing
two or three; but scarcely one in the wide extent of the Alps
is superior in grandeur to that of the Ober Grindelwald glacier,
which forms our frontispiece. This marvellous cascade of ice is
about 400 yards m width at the top, and not much short of
2,500 feet in vertical height, and is framed in black precipitous rocks,
with the dark stern peak of the Schreckhorn frowning overhead on
the right.
At the bottom of the same picture the glacier is seen again flowing
fe
a)
onwards in comparatively smooth and unbroken condition: and tl
same thing may be observed with even more distinctness in the
accompanying view of the Rhone glacier, where the ice-fall though
less steep is almost equally broken, and the surface below it more nearly
level. How has the glacier, after being riven in every direction at the
fall, and poured in a cascade of icy fragments down a descent of 2,500
t
which has effected this magical result is merely the resistance of the
i=)
feet, again become compacted into a homogeneous whole? The age
24. BELOW AN ICE-FALL.
mass below the ice-fall, which having a comparatively gentle slope to
descend refuses to give way, except to severe pressure from behind.
Supposing a square-cut slice of the glacier to reach the bottom of the
fall, its upper edge will first come into contact with the ice in front,
and will by the pressure from behind be reunited to it through
regelation. As the slice works its way down entirely on to the
gentler incline, it brmegs its lower parts also into contact, and in the
effort to find room for its
If the whole becomes reunited to the mass in
front. The same process is repeated with every successive slice of the
elacier, into whatever shape it may be split by the accidental shape of
the ice-fall; and so the glacier goes on its way below the fall as if
nothing had happened.
At eyery change in the angle of inclination of its bed, one
of these two processes is repeated; when it becomes steeper,
the glacier is visibly broken across, as every successive wave
reaches the angle; and when it becomes less steep, the crevasses
previously existing are wholly or partially obliterated by the resulting
pressure. It is from observation of these effects, produced by very
he inclination, that Professor Tyndall deduces his
slight changes in t
conclusion that a glacier, like its component ice, is incapable of
bearing any perceptible strain, and is therefore not in any sense a
viscous body. A specially good instance of these successive changes,
slight in themselves, but producing marked results, is to be found on
the lower part of the Unter Grindelwald glacier, between the Eismeer
and the final fall.
It is not to be supposed that when the glacier reaches a gentler
slope, after passing down a fall, the crevasses formed in the fall are
always, or even usually, obliterated. Sometimes eyery trace of them
is destroyed, and the surface becomes really smooth and uniform:
sometimes a fresh change of inclination occurs so speedily that it is
bo
Or
WAVES OF ICE.
hard to tell whether the crevasses there appearmg are new, or the old
ones which have never entirely closed. In general however the
successive waves of the ice-fall are very clearly visible for a long
distance below its termination; and the sun gradually wastes thei
angular outlines until they assume a rounded shape very similar to
that of ocean waves, as may be seen in the accompanying illustration,
which represents a portion of the surface of the Aar glacier, the wave
forms being the result of the grand ice-fall under the Finsteraarhorn.
WAVED SURFACE OF THE AAR GLACIER.
Further on, let us suppose two valleys, each containing its glacier,
to meet at an angle, and form one larger valley. The two glaciers of
E
26 JUNCTION OF TWO GLACIERS.
course are brought into contact, and obedient to the law which welds
into one two mas
ses of ice duly pressed together, flow onwards in an
united stream. And though their line of junction may often be
traced down the entire length of the wnited elacier by means of the
moraines (a phenomenon to be explained hereafter), yet no division can
be discovered in the ice, which becomes truly one stream. An instance
of such a junction may be seen in the illustration facie p. 109,
where the glacier descending straight towards the spectator joins with
another flowing from his left hand, and the two flow thence in a com-
mon stream. the commencement of the line of junction being marked
in the picture by the black lme of moraine across the foreeround.
Sometimes, as may be seen in the illustration at p. 78, two glaciers
meet in this manner at the top of an ice-fall, and pour over the brow
together, in which case every trace of their ever haying hada separate
existence is usually obliterated by the time they reach more level
sround. In the same picture may also be seen another instance of
the manner in which two glaciers unite. 4 tt
HOW GLACIERS TERMINATE. 189
terminal ice-fall of the most reeular construction : while, throuch the
comparative scarcity of crevasses, itis easily traversed in all directions.
Its characteris feature is the almost leyel expanse and vast size
in proportion to that of the glacier, of the upper basin, or rather
pair of basins, out of which issues the glacier properly so called :
these features have been already dwelt on sufficiently in a previous
hapter.
The modes in which glaciers terminate are almost as various as
their courses, and would be highly interesting in themselves eyen if
the ice at the foot of a glacier were not nec essarily in a condition of
the greatest density, aul consequently of the highest beauty. Some
end like the Rhone glacier, in a widely spread and comparatively thin
cake of ice, cloven by crevasses converging towards the centre, and
nowhere very closely compressed. Others terminate in a forlorn
manner, without any apparent reason, half way down a steep slope,
the ice bemg dislocated as is usual upon a fall, and in that state finally
melting away: to this melancholy condition the two Grindelwald
glaciers will be reduced, if their present rate of diminution continues
much longer. Others, like the Aar glacier, haying been heavily laden
with moraines during their course, have their extremity covered entirely
with stones, and lose all outward appearance of a glacier. Some
again are forcad into a narrow eX , and have their substance com-
pressed to a density worthy of an icebere: of this kind the Great
tee glacier, as depicted on p. 171, is a good instance. Sometimes,
but by no means universally, there is a regularly defined cavern at
the foot of a glacier, caused by the water which issues thence in a
collected stream, draining nearly the whole wnder surface of the
glacier, and forming the source of the resulting river. The terminal
eave of the Unter Grindelwald glacier, represented on our last page,
is usually as perfectly formed as it there seems to be: but it not
190 OTHER OBERLAND GLACIERS.
infrequently happens that the whole arch of ice gives way, and falls
in with a erash, blocking the flow of the waters with huge masses of
ice, and obliterating for the time all the beauty of the cavern.
By visiting the six glaciers of which sketches have been given, any
one may obtain ocular acquaintance with all the various types of
elacier, and with the phenomena of their formation and surfaces.
Par be it from us, however, to imply that other glaciers of the Alps, or
even of the Oberland, are comparatively of little interest. The
glacier of Rosonlami has acquired great and deserved celebrity for the
purity of its ice and for the beauty of its terminal caverns: the
Oberaar is of the straightest and simplest possible form: that of
Viesch, the most sinuous, is further remarkable for its small size in
proportion to the vast snow-fields out of which it flows: the Gugel
and Kiger glaciers, on the northern face of the Oberland, are among
the steepest up which a passage has ever been made, and the most
wonderful in their complicated crevasses : while the huge Gauli
elacier would deserve to rank among the foremost were it but
accessible by any easier means than by six hours’ walk up a steep
valley from Meyringen. All these, and many more, will amply
repay the explorer for his trouble; but if a choice is necessary
and free, it will better be made from among the glaciers of the first
importance.
The Oberland is perhaps exceptionally favoured in the recularity of
its glaciers, and the consequent ease with which they can be visited :
and enough has probably been said already to show that these glaciers
may easily be explored by any person capable of walking a moderate
distance. Still there are many things which it requires skill to dis-
cover, and some familiarity with ice-walking to reach: and the
grandest scenery is of course to be found only by climbing for it.
Myr. Ruskin seems to think that the beauty of the Alps is best seen
MOUNTAIN PICTURES. 191
from below, where all persons can enjoy it alike, whatever their physical
powers. This is undoubtedly true in a certain sense: picturesque
views, in the proper sense of that much abused adjective, require the
combination of other elements with the bare dark rocks and the
gleaming white of the snow. But many scenes are grand and
impressive in the highest degree without being picturesque,
that is to say without beimg suitable subjects for pictures ;
from the very fact of being unlike what men in general would
recognize as a natural picture, they have a stronger effect on the
imagination of the beholder, and fix themselyes on the memory
more indelibly.
The beauty of the prospect to be enjoyed from the high peaks of
the Alps 1s one which appeals rather to the feelings than to the
artistic perceptions, and is none the less attractive because it hardly
admits of translation into words. Perhaps the impression of it can
scarcely be dissevered entirely in the mind from consciousness of the
effort necessary before it can be enjoyed, though it may fairly be
reckoned as independent of the specific difficulty of any particular
peak, as compared with others. Itisnot merely the ardent and enter-
prising, glowing with a desire to see with the bodily eyes those glories
which the imagination paints in such bright colours, to whom the
feeling is natural :—
Methinks what bliss it were to scale
Yon peak that seems as soft as Hope afar,
Crowned with the sunrise, or the morning star.
The veterans of the Alps, who have seen dozens of such views, and
who enjoy from long familiarity the difficulties and dangers to which
the untried beginner, however bold and determined, cannot look
192) MOUNTAIN WALKING.
forward without some slight anxiety, have a delight in the scenery not
“less keen, and more appreciative, than one who finds himself for the
first time on a lofty summit.
For such sights as are to be seen upon, and during the ascent and
descent of, any high mountain or pass, it would be worth while to incur
some trouble even if there were no pleasure in the actual goine.
Practical experience teaches us that we cannot expect to obtain a
good article without paying a fair price for it, and this holds eood
whether the payment is to be made in coin of the realm or in our own
labour. Setting aside the money cost of Alpine travelling, which is
after all less upon the average than that of most other journeys,
we must expend a considerable amount of personal exertion, if we
would explore the choicest secrets of nature. To the majority of
Knelishmen active exercise, of whatever kind, is move commonly
delightful than irksome ; and thus the expenditure more than repays
itself, leaving the enjoyment derived from the scenery as pure profit
on the transaction. And it is only those who thus enjoy bodily
activity who are ever likely to be attracted by the Alps: people
studious mainly of their ease will not travel away from their
comforts and luxuries. Nor ought it to be forgotten that Alpine
walking and climbing exact perseverance and sustained effort to
a degree considerably exceeding the requirements of any other
athletic sport: there is nothing in home pursuits, not even a long
day’s tramp with a gun on one’s shoulder without ever seeing a
head of game, which taxes the patience so heavily as plodding
up a steep and soft snow-slope which seems to come to no visible
termunation.
It is not to be denied that a certain amount of danger, as well as
of severe exertion, must be encountered in exploring the wonders of
the high Alps. Nor is this really to be regretted, since nothing braces
REAL DANGERS IN CLIMBING. 193
a man’s nerves, and prepares every muscle for the maximum of effort,
like the consciousness that his life is in his own keeping, provided -
always that he has room for the full use of his powers, and that there
is nothing to impede their energy. The dangers to which climbers are
exposed in the Alps are probably not really understood by any one
who has never experienced them ; and a few words on them nature,
and the mode in which they should be met, may not be without their
interest even to those who have a practical knowledge of the matter,
and are most concerned that others should understand it also.
There are in truth two senses in which the word danger is used, and
much confusion, both of thought and language, arises from not
accurately discriminating between them. This distinction may be
traced through every description of danger, but is especially con-
spicuous in that class to which our attention is now directed. A
place is properly said to be dangerous, where something beyond the
control of man is likely to happen, which will cause harm to persons
on the spot at the time when it occurs; for instance a place among
the Alps is truly dangerous, on which an avalanche or a fall of stones
may at any moment descend—a thing which no skill or strength can
euard against, or prevent from inflicting injury. A risk of this kind
is rarely encountered, because the spots so exposed are few in number,
and clearly seen to be dangerous. If the risk be slight, it will
generally be braved without hesitation, care being taken to remain
exposed to it for as short a time as possible; if serious, it ought
to entail the abandonment of the expedition, if no way of cir-
cumventing the dangerous pomt can be discovered ; the only
practical difficulty is where to draw the line, and this must neces-
sarily be left to the judgment of the parties concerned on each
particular occasion.
A place is also, and improperly, called dangerous, where an accident
CC
194 DANGERS IMPROPERLY SO CALLED.
resulting from causes within human control will probably involve
very serious consequences—for instance, a slope of ice on which
a party is moving by means of cut steps, and where the fall of any
one may carry the others to destruction. This species of danger not
only must be encountered more or less in all mountain climbing,
but is also exactly what furnishes the most valuable stimulus to the
bodily and mental energies. No one has a right to venture among
the high Alps unless he can trust himself to keep his balance, to look
unmoyed down a crevasse or a precipice, and to tread securely in an
ice-step. It is proverbially impossible to learn to swim without going
into the water, and perfect self-confidence can only be gained by
experience. But no man ought to go where a slip will peril the lives
of himself and others, until he has a reasonable assurance, founded
on previous practice in less exposed places, that he at least will not
be the one to slip.
Between these two clearly marked sorts of danger lies a ‘‘debateable
land,” which possesses in part the distinguishing features of the one,
and yet must be judged of by the principles applicable to the other.
There are places where footing and hand-hold are so precarious that
the most skilful may easily lose their hold or their balance, where
disaster, though caused by human failure, could not yet be fairly
charged to want of skill. In each individual case the question arises,
whether such risk may rightly be braved, and the answer must be the
same as if the danger were entirely beyond human control. The
nearer however that risks primd facie avoidable approach to this
condition, the more sedulous ought to be the care taken ; though in
truth the lack of due precautions is never excusable, seeing how
grievous a loss may be occasioned, in their absence, by momentary
carelessness.
The artificial precautions requisite to guard against Alpine dangers
REASONABLE SAFEGUARDS. 195
consist chiefly in the continual employment and proper application
of the rope; but there are also safeeuards of great value, not only
against the actual perils of the mountains, but against any injury
to health-through climbing. These may all perhaps be summed
up in the single quality of prudence, but are developments of that
virtue in different directions. That the novice ought not to attempt
difficult climbime has already been urged, on the ground of the
risk thereby entailed on the party; a lower but equally valid motive
for abstaining is to be found in the great probability that his in-
experience may cause such delay as to frustrate the object of the
expedition. Similarly it is inexcusable rashness to persevere when a
competent guide thinks it dai
rous to proceed, on account either
of the state of the weather.
of the intrinsic danger of the place, or
A third and most important exercise of prudence consists in not
doing too much. One man’s meat is too often another man’s poison :
the amount of exertion which is healthily sufficient for one may be
far beyond the strength and endurance of another. Though in the
pure mountain air it is comparatively easy to do much more than at
home, yet there is a limit to the effects produced by even that most
invigorating of tonics ; and time must further be allowed for it to do
its work. The man who travels straight out from England, and sets
himself immediately to climb Mont Blane or the Wetterhorn, will
in all probability knock himself up for a week, whereas if he had
trained himself by three or four days of less arduous walking,
he might easily have accomplished his purpose. Mountain sickness
is a thing frequently talked of, though but seldom experienced :
some few people are unquestionably affected by the rarity of the
air; but the majority of those who, im the early days of
Alpine travel, brought back from the mountains such vivid remini-
scences of their sufferings, were simply paying the penalty of
196 THE CLIMBING SPIRIT.
attempting severe and prolonged exertion without any previous
preparation.
With such precautions as these, mountain-climbing is, if not
absolutely free from danger, as safe a pastime as any other of the
sports which are the pride and delight of the Enelish nation. And
if it be reckoned among field-sports, as a pursuit of the same
character, it may fairly claim a prominent place among them, if not
the very foremost rank. Mountaineering offers, to those able and
willing to profit by the opportunity, abundant means of gathering
knowledge in various branches of science. Very few can hope to
discover among the Alps anything universally valuable as actually
new, or as illustrating old truths in a novel manner ; yet all
can pick up stores of knowledge which will be valuable to them-
selves, and will materially aid them to appreciate the varied wonders
of creation and the infinite wisdom of the Creator. Moreover
mountain-climbing inflicts no suffering on any living creatures,
he actual, though scarcely perceived, end and purpose of
shooting, hunting, fishing: and though this is no yalid reason
or condemning those pursuits absolutely, yet it creates a draw-
yack to them in some minds, from which mountaineering is exempt.
The impulse which urges men to the high Alps is however
somewhat different from that which leads them to take up ordinary
field-sports; or rather the motive which underlies all alike more
visibly incites to this pursuit. It is in part ambition translated into
physical action, recking little of the obstacles which bar access to
any desired end :—
trom shelf to shelf ambition clambers up
To reach the naked’st pinnacle of all.
The mountaineer is a more perfect type of the ambitious
ITS ORIGIN AND VALUE. 197
man than even the fox-hunter, laudably zealous to be in at the
death; and he has the further advantage that his end, when
attained, is worth having.
The means howeyer, rather than the end, are the intrinsically
All alike are desirable, not
valuable portion of all athletic exercise.
for the object sought to be attained, but for the discipline of mind
and body in the pursuit. No one would care for a fox’s brush if it
were not the trophy of a laborious chase, and of a triumph oyer his
competitors for the same prize: it is not the keenest sportsmen who
enjoy the slaughter of a battue. And though there would be some
real pleasure in standing on a mountain-top, if one could reach it by
five minutes’ walking, yet the sense of enjoyment would be by no
means as keen as when the same thing is attained by a long and
laborious ascent.
The climbing spirit, like the love of all kindred pursuits, is essentially
a form of that restless energy, that love of action for its own sake, of
exploring the earth and subduing it, which has made England the
ereat colonizer of the world, and has led individual Englishmen to
penetrate the wildest recesses of eyery continent. It is the vent
found, by men engaged in peaceable stay-at-home occupations,
for a love of adventure which can hardly be indulged in any
other way; and if their zeal renders them occasionally immoderate
in their praise of the pursuit, and imprudent in urging upon others
its claims to favour, they are not louder in their appeals for
public appreciation than enthusiasts in other sports. To all
alike some little obtrusion of themselves on unsympathising hearers
may be forgiven, in consideration of their fostering, each in
their special way, a spirit to which England owes much of her
greatness.
It was not without reason that our great poet borrowed from the
198 ENJOYMENT OF THE SUCCESS.
mountaineer’s pursuit his noble simile for the steady performance
and final reward of Duty :—
He that with toil of heart and knees and hands
Through the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevailed,
Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table lands
To which our God Himself is moon and sun.
Patience, dogged perseverance, fixed determination to go through
se of which
with a work once undertaken, are quilities for the exerci
the climber has frequent occasion, and thus body and mind alike
receive a training which is not without its yalue in more serious
matters.
In proportion as the labour has been long and severe, so will the
enjoyment of the prize be intense. Some find pleasure in being
wble afterwards to claim the credit of having ascended this or that
mountain, a propensity by no means confined to Alpine climbers, nor
more prominent in them than in devotees of boating or fox-lunting.
And contemptible as this vanity is when unduly exhibited, there
is a legitimate side to it, a lawful pride in being known to have per-
formed a difficult feat, perhaps never before accomplished. But the
pleasure after all consists mainly in the ‘‘joy of the deed,’ in the
sense of having fairly conquered the difficulties in the way, and
haying at length reached the goal chosen beforehand as the end and
object to be aimed at. This satisfaction is entirely independent of
anything to be seen on the top or during the ascent, and would almost
suttice to justify the mountaineer in being ready to climb, even when
the summits are ‘‘enwrapped in mist from base to cope,’ unless
prudence interfered.
PLEASURES OF MOUNTAINEERING. 199
Thus Alpine climbing possesses a spice of almost every form of
pleasure and profit. It brings the body into the best and healthiest
condition, and affords that instinctive and half-conscious delight which
every man—it may almost be said every animal—experiences in using
his muscles vigorously and successfully. It unfolds to the eye an ever
new series of beauties, alternately grand and soft, exquisite im their
detail or sublime in their sternness. It feeds the intellect and the
imagination with the sight of the mightiest forces of nature in
operation, and of the vast results which they have achieved. And
when we add to these physical and mental pleasures the moral
satisfaction which is derived from dangers braved and difficulties
overcome, we may fairly claim to place mountaineering as not only the
first of athletic pursuits, but as almost the greatest of those pleasures
which are self-regarding. Those which spring from benevolence and
the affections are entirely different in kind, and enter into no com-
parison with the pleasures which in no way arise from sympathy with
others; and though we acknowledge the infinite superiority of the
unselfish order of pleasures, the world is too full of materials for the
lower kind to permit us to think lightly of one which combines im
itself almost every variety of sclf-regarding enjoyment.
CHAPTER XII.
THE GiSCHINEN SEE AND STEINBERG ALP.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go ;
And some through wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumberous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flushed : and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.—TENNyson.
T is remarkable, considering the vast quantity of ice and snow
that covers the high Alps, to observe how little conspictious
running water is in the majority of extensive views. The
slender brooks coming from the terminal caves of the glaciers are
occasionally visible, and from some few high peaks may be descried
the long reach of some larger stream, not unworthy the name
of river; but on the whole water plays a very subordinate part
in the scene, as compared with its importance in landscapes of
humbler pretensions. This arises in a great measure from the
WATER BEAUTIES OF THE ALPS. 201
4:
depth of the valleys, rendering it difficult to see down into
them from surrounding heights, and from the manner m which
many streams cut channels for themselves below the average level
of the valleys; but independently of this there is an undoubted
deficiency of water collected in any considerable volume.
The lakes of Switzerland and North Italy are, it is true. unrivalled
in beauty, and vary infinitely in their character, from the stern
grandeur of Lucerne and Wallenstadt, to the smiling loveliness of
Maggiore. But from very few mountains that themselves belong, or
approach nearly, to the regions of everlasting snow, can more than a
distant glimpse of any of the great lakes be obtained, while nearly
all the fine water-falls are shrouded in valleys not otherwise
distinguished for beauty.
Those who appreciate water most highly, as an essential element of
the beautiful m scenery, will find no corner of the Alps more to their
taste than the north-western portion of the Oberland. The valley of
Lauterbrunnen derives its very name from the number of its streams
and water-falls, while in the neighbourhood of Kandersteg, separated
from Lauterbrunnen by a day’s journey over one of the easiest and
erandest of glacier passes, is to be found a gem of finer water, to
use an excusable pun, than any other in Switzerland. Within an
hour's walk of the road, in a lateral valley up which is the alternative
route to Lauterbrunnen, less interesting and more laborious than the
Tschingel Pass, lies the Cischinen See, a small lake about a mile
long and a thousand yards wide, bordered round more than half
its circumference by pine woods, and bounded on the other side by
the sheer precipices of the Bliimlis Alp.
The sight of this lovely sheet of water comes on the traveller as a
surprise. After walking for nearly an hour up the boulder-strewn
course of the stream which drains the lake, and through thickets of
D D
202, THE (SCHINEN SEE.
dwarf trees, he emerges upon an open space of undulating ground,
carpeted with fresh turf, and intersected by many rivulets: and not
till the highest swell is surmounted does he catch a glimpse of the
(schinen See, now within a few yards of his fect. The peaceful
waters, sheltered on every side by thickly clustering forest or gieantie
precipice, are seldom ruffled by the wind: and the mighty forms of the
Bliimhs Alp and her sister peaks are reflected go clearly that we seem
to see down, as in a vision, to the depths where their foundations
are fixed, and to discern that they share the firmly-rooted stability
of Vireil’s oak,
Que, quantum vertice ad auras
ARtherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.
The impression of stern and fixed repose thence derived is not
impaired by the contemplation of the peaks themselves. For a great
distance above the level of the lake the face of the mountain consists
of a series of bare grey precipices, broken by narrow and shelying
ledges, and nowhere allowing snow to cling to their weather-beaten
surface. The summits recede considerably from the upper edge of
these precipices, and the glaciers which clothe their sides scarcely
anywhere descend so far as the brow. Thus no ice-avalanches, like
those which thunder from the cliffs of the Jungfrau and Wetterhorn,
disturb the calm stillness of the Gischinen See. Instead of the
occasional torrent of icy fragments, and the roar which heralds its
descent, the waters of the melting elaciers are poured over in countless
tiny falls, and re-uniting below into new rills, are precipitated over
another and yet another precipice. The whole face of the rocky wall is
covered with a network of intersecting lines, growing and dwindling
to)
HINEN SEE AND BLUMLIS ALP
To face page 202
25
m
fA
re)
A DAY SPENT BESIDE IT. 203
momentarily in thickness, and forming a living pattern of silver on the
stern grey cliffs.
None of our party had ever fairly seen the Gischinen See, though
several members of it had visited the place in weather more or less
unfavourable ; and when the time for breakine up drew so near that
we could map out our final movements exactly, it was unanimously
agreed that the banks of this sequestered lake, the most picturesque
spot to which our wanderings led us, should witness our last Alpine
picnic. The established regulations were once more carried out: a
photographie detachment was ready to begin work with the earliest
available daylight, and the main body arrived on the field at a later
hour in charge of the commissariat. Unlike the glaciers on which so
many sunilar days had been spent, the shore of the Cischimen See
afforded us plenty of cool shade : and, late as it was im the season,
not a few strawberries still remained to give an epicurean flavour
to our rough meal. A dogmatic gentleman was heard at Thun to
explain the abundance of strawberries there by asserting that they
erew on all the high mountaims and most of the glaciers, but he
omitted to name the specific glaciers ; doubtless we were unfortunate
in our selection, for this was the first occasion on which our
picnic took place away from glacier or tolerably high mountain,
and the first also that ever strawberries graced the feast. Mr.
Wills has extolled the neighbourhood of the C&schinen See for
the abundance and variety of its wild fruits; and though too late
for most of them, we found quite enough to reconcile us, with the
further comforts of shade, and luxurious bathing within a quarter
of a mile, to not having ice under foot. Nor was it until the
sun had sunk finally behind the range of the Doldenhorn
that we broke up our encampment, and returned reluctantly to
Kandersteg.
204 DISPERSION OF THE PARTY.
The next day our party split into fragments, like a bursting
shell, and scattered in every direction, one element of it going
off to Geneva, another to Paris, and a third back to England.
There was still a little work to be done in the neighbourhood of
Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, and the plan decided on was that
the two remaining ladies should wait quictly at Thun until it was
finished, while E—— and G—— took the camera over the
Tschingel Pass to the head of the Lauterbrunnen valley. At the
proper hour in the morning, or rather in the night, G—— was
duly called, and on his way down to breakfast knocked at his
intended companion’s door, as a friendly hint that the sun waits
for no man.
bo
Oo
FIRE, ICE, AND WATER.
no change since it cooled down from being a molten flood, here rear
their naked fronts aboye the later formations. It is possible, though
the balance of inference is against it, that some of the Alpine valleys
were originally formed by some natural convulsion, which must have
been caused by the heat of the central fires : it is possible also that the
eranite mountains may have boiled 1p, so to speak, in their present
position, through a crust of other and later formation. But on the
whole there is little visible among the Alps which can be referred to
the power of heat directly, or in any other sense than is applicable to
the entire crust of the earth.
Of what ice can do the glaciers show us half, and the most impor-
tant half ; for though almost every country whose geology has been
investigated bears traces of deposit left upon some part of its surface
by primieval ice-bergs, yet even these ice-bergs, if they carried drift,
must have received their cargo while portions of a glacier, just as the
Greenland ice-beres do at ihe present time. Moreover the glaciers,
if they really formed all the valleys, thereby determined to a great
extent the course of the rivers, and consequently the chief localities of
humin population and the directions of early human intercourse. To
realize the transit of ice-bergs over what is now dry land requires
an effort of imagination beyond ordinary reach, though we may
easily believe the fact: the glaciers we can see almost with our
own eyes doing work the same in kind, though not nearly so
ereat in quantity, as that which they were apported to do in the
elacial epoch.
The action of water also we may easily trace in almost every Alpine
valley, while the streams which carve the surface of glaciers have
afforded us a sort of working model of the operations of water on a
larger scale, and on less yielding material ; and the combined effects
of heat, frost, and ram, acting in rapid alternations on the exposed
230 A GEOLOGICAL TEACHER.
peaks, haye given them their fantastic details of form. We need seek
no better place, if we desire to see the powers of nature most visibly
working, than
The high mountain platforms
Where morn first appears,
Where the white mists for ever
Are spread and upfurled,
In the stir of the forces
Whence issued the world.
The earliest rock forms are seen among the Alps in all their bare
simplicity, and many of the successive stages in the growth of the
earth’s crust, from the primal granite down to the latest alluvial
deposit, are there exhibited. We may almost trace the course of the
changes, and see all the fundamental principles of geology, in the
widest sense of that term, exemplified before our eyes. And although
we cannot estimate the time which must clapse before we may hope
to have learned the complete history of the earth, if ever that day
should dawn, yet we can readily see how valuable are the Alps to us,
an always open book im which we may study some of the most im-
portant chapters in that long and mysterious history.
A glacier is so maryellously unlike any of our home phenomena,
and the forms of the mountains are so vast im size and stupendous in
their effect on the imagination, that it excites a strange complication
of feelings when we realize the truth that they were produced by the
same forces which have constituted our own tamer and more peaceful
land, nay more, that they are the results of simpler and more
elementary operations of those forces. At first we begin to fancy
that “‘the riddle of the painful earth” is not so hard to solve after
all. If the grandest phenomena of nature arise from causes with
THE CONSERVATION OF FORCE. 231
whose workings we are every day familiar, and which we daily set in
motion to rh our particular needs, the human intellect ought i
be capable not only of understanding the principles upon whic
the world has been formed, but also of directing the natural ae
at will.
Further reflection shows us that though we have seen aright
that the grandest and the most ordimary things in nature are more
early akin than at first they appeared, yet we ought in consequence
exalt our estimate of the smaller, not to disparage the greater
phenomena. When our attention has been roused by wonders on a
larger scale, we learn to appreciate the mysteries, unnoticed
before because too familiar, which underlie the commonest things of
daily life.
The great principle of the Conservation of Force, and the subsequent
discoveries which tend to show that all the natural agencies are but
different manifestations of one and the same fundamental power,
while they bring us nearer to understanding the mysteries of the
universe, and ie a hope that man may some day be able to
discern the whole wondrous plan of creation, nevertheless tend, like
everything great in science, to exalt our conception of the mfinite
wisdom and power of the Creator. Man can translate one form of
force into another, produce motion by the consumption a heat or
electricity, or evoke heat by suddenly arresting motion; but he is
powerless to create any power whatever. The whole sum of force
requisite for every natural change, or capable of being wielded by
human will, exists already in some shape, and nought that man may
do can add to its amount or diminish from it. God alone has created
the entire motive power of the universe, and given the original
impulse to the mighty machine: and whether we believe that He
continues actively to euide and superintend its working, or hold that
232 THE DIVINE POWER
He has once for all imposed upon it the immutable laws of its being,
in neither case is the one ereat fact obscured.
The deeper we penctrate into the arcana of nature, so as to discern
‘the law within the law,” the more clearly do we perceive that above
and beyond all law rises the supreme will of the Almighty laweiver.
Those yery geological periods, whose incalculable leneth stretches
fo)
backwards over the world’s history to a begmning which every new
enquiry seems to set further off, are the strongest evidence of the
o
eternal wi
SI
om of the Creator. The first discoveries that proved
the earth to be of immense antiquity led the presumptuous to
deny the truth of a divine revelation, which seemed to contradict
the conclusions of science, and the bigoted to disbelieve the truths of
science because they appeared to be at variance with revelation.
Time and thought have removed this mutual distrust: and the man
of science is often the most truly religious, because he has the
best appreciation of the infmite wisdom and power involyed in the
work of creation.
Vamiharity with the wonders of the Alps is among the best
means for originating and deepening such impressions: for their
5
gigantic size and awful phenomena tend to produce an effect not
merely on our intellectual perceptions, but also upon the moral
feelings.
The mountain-ranges are to us monuments of pre-historic ages,
when a solid crust first formed over the molten earth, and the elaciers
are the visible instruments of the Creator in transforming that barren
globe into a smiling world fit for the habitation of man; but peak
and glacier may also well serve as emblems of even higher things
than these. Not without reason did the prophets of Israel ‘ lift up
their eyes unto the hills,” and the poets of Greece seat their deities
in Olympus and Ida: there was some meaning in the Oriental belief
MANIFESTED IN THE ALPS. 233
that the mysterious Mount Kaf was the boundary of the mortal world.
It is not merely that the peaks point heavenwards more majestically
than any Gothie spire, or that the thunder of the avalanche and the
berg-fall speaks of Almighty power. The “ mystic mountain-range,”’
gleaming on the horizon across a vast intermediate distance of plain
and lower hills, seems to form a barrier beyond which the world can
extend no further; towering up from no visible base, it appears to
pierce the very skies, while its perfect whiteness and stillness makes
it no unfit emblem of heaven, the home of everlasting purity and
peace, rising above the dark shadows and busy contentions of this
lower world.
Well may’st thou stand and worship—earth can show
No worthier temple than yon spires of snow—
Worship the God, whose silent presence fills
The awful solitude of yonder hills :
He built them, emblems to man’s sight and sense
Of power supreme, immutable, immense,
Principal Forbes* has instituted with much poctic force a comparison
between the course of human life a
“ Teaven-descended in its origin,
conformation from the hidden womb o
it forth. At first soft and ductile, it ac
of its own, as an inevitable destiny u
Jostled and constrained by the cro
prescribed path, hedged in by impas
id the history of a glacier.
it yet takes its mould and
‘the mountains which brought
‘quires a character and firmness
‘ges it on its onward career.
sses and inequalities of its
ble barriers, which fix limits to
its movements, it yields groaning to its fate, and still travels forward,
* Travels in the Alps of
HH
Savoy, p. 887.
cai
934. THE LIFE OF A GLACIER.
seamed with the scars of many a conflict with opposing obstacles.
All this while, although wasting, it is renewed by an unseen power—
it evaporates, but is not consumed. On its surface it bears the spoils
which dure the proeress of existence it has made it own—often
weighty burdens devoid of beauty or value ; at times precious masses
sparkling with gems or with ore.” These external things do more than
accumulate as a burden or an ornament; they often act as a diseuise,
yreion to its real nature:
and cover the surface with a clothing f
but within the substance remains the same, such as its original
creation rendered possible, and its subsequent workings have
developed, firmer and more consistent for every strugele it has gone
through. Some men there are who still further follow the pattern
of the glacier, and emerge from every trial clearer and purer
inwardly, until at the close of their career they shine like one
entire and perfect chrysolite.
Sometimes many and strange vicissitudes are encountered ; some-
times its course continues smooth and equable to the destined
end, untried by difficulties and unbroken by opposition. Now it
iS seen
Shooting o'er some verge, to make a short,
An angry and precipitate descent,
Thenceforward much tormented on its way—
and to terminate prematurely, amid distraction and confusion.
Another's career is long; passing perchance at an early period
through straits in which its youthful freshness is destroyed, it
escapes into comparative quietude and freedom, and moves slowly
on to a far distant end, to expire at length, perhaps in obscurity
and contempt, perhaps in all the splendour due to a pure career.
A TERMINAL CAVE. 235
Each alike however ultimately terminates in the same manner,
in the dark sepulchral cavern whence a new being, the same
in personal identity, but changed and exalted in nature, emerges
to a nobler and freer life.
INCOM AS Ia Ne MR Ss Tes OM MOU RAI ea Sle,
A xNowLEDGE of the general results, if not of the practice, of the art
of photogra
the means e
were met Wi
shy is now so widely spread, that a few brief notes as to
nployed to obtain, and to surmount the difficulties that
th in obtaining, the somewhat unusual series of photo-
graphs which constitute the illustrations to this work, may be interesting
to many of
the use of
its readers ; and in writing these I haye endeavoured, by
as few technical terms as possible, to make myself
intelligible to those to whom the practice of photography is a dead
letter.
In selecti
21¢ the apparatus for my purpose, from the nature of the
work to be done, two objects were required to be kept in view, first
that it shou
strong as po
sion which |
d be as light and compact, and next that it should be as
ssible. These difficulties were not lessened by the deci-
iad been arrived at, that it was necessary to provide for
taking pictures of at least three different sizes, and that the smallest
number of 1
By very ¢
and every
1egatives to be taken of cach view should be four.
areful planning, by the saving of every ounce of weight
ich of space that was not actually needed, the whole of
the apparatus, includimg no less than eight different lenses, with a
supply of chemicals and plates for three days—and such toilet requi-
sites as were necessary for my own use—were stowed in two small
238 NOTES BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER.
cases which could readily be carried by one man, the “legs” of
camera and tent being extra.
The first case comprised the dark tent, which was a modification
of form known as Edwards’, and may be thus described :—The out-
ward shape presented the appearance of a wooden knapsack, being
complete in itself, with the exception of its stand, which was carried
along with the camera legs. On its being placed on its stand and
prepared for action, this process oceupyine about three minutes, the
operator finds the lid of the box transformed into a washing tray, from
which a pipe carries away the waste to the ground; at his left hand
is the mitrate bath let down into a bag, the top of the bath being
about an inch above the surface of the tray; and to prevent any
chance of any foreign matter entering this, a waterproof covering is
provided. In the upper left-hand corner are placed the various bottles
of chemicals, cach in a cell to itself, and comprising two six-ounce
bottles (glass) of collodion, bottles of iron and pyro developers, silver
solution for deepening, and cyanide for fixing (all in eutta-percha
bottles) besides developing classes, dusting-brush, and blotting-paper.
Immediately under these is a cupboard exactly the size of the
plates used, viz., eight inches by six, arranged for the reception of
them in a partly finished state, where they may be kept damp till the
end of the day, or till a convenient opportunity arrives for their com -
pletion. By the method employed in the construction of this euy-
board, I have on occasion, and during summer, kept plates wet for
three days. This arrangement proved to be of great value. The
importance of making the most of good light cannot he overrated,
and by this means I have been enabled to take as many as twelve
subjects in one day, striking my tent for this purpose six different
times, and gettmg oyer as well a considerable distance of elacier
walking. Moreover, a very large amount of water is required for
finishing the plates; and thongh this can usually be obtained in
abundance on the surface of a glacier, yet this advantage ceases on
going beyond the snow line, or up such mountains as the Sparrenhorn
and Torrenthorn, whence were taken the views given in Chapter VIII.
Tn all such places I found it essential to economize to the utmost the
scanty store of water which could be carried with me, or I could not
have obtamed half the pictures actually taken; and to this end
Q
Ke
NOTES BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER. 239
the arrangement for keeping the plates in a damp state materially
contributed.
To continue the description of the tent ; opposite the operator again,
but at the right-hand side, is a large window of three thicknesses
of yellow ‘ tammy” or calico, which can be e: asily opened and shut
from the inside, the box itself at this part forming the shelf on which
to put stray bottles and developing glasses ; and finally hanging from
the right-hand corner - an elastic tube with an ingenious tap,
which conveys the wi supply from a large zine cistern placed out-
side on the top ¢ nile tent, where it can be filled and refilled at
pleasure. The ee haying sented Inmself on his camp-stool,
Which folds up and goes with the lees, has merely to draw over himself
the Leht proof covering attached ie ie tent and kept in its place by
two very light iron rods, to commence his work. He will find every-
thing in its place and everythi 1¢ to his hand, with plenty of elbow
and ee to got igh or modify his operations at wil /]
the tent is } 1 the nitrate bath and the water-tank
places among the ot ther apparatus within the case.
This arrangement made for working eight-by-s
measures 133 by 17 by 63 imehes, and weighs wit
plement of chemicals, and every necessary except the camera and
legs, 17 Ibs. It would be perfectly simple to arrange for the camera
also being carried in it; but I exc not found this advisable or
convenient for this reason. On arriving at a promising subject the
camera only is first put up; the selection of ‘ae ew is then Me
and this, which is seldom effected without a good deal of consideration
and running about, being decided on, the tent is unpacked as uear
to it as may be convenient. It being important to saye frequent
shifting of the tent, we generally pitched it, if possible, at a place
near which several views were wanted ; and since it was not safe
to convey the prepared plate a greater distance than about three
minutes’ walk, we had to choose a central spot between three or
four points of view. During all this delay the tent remained packed
up, avoiding se possibility of any accident to its Soa and
if, as occasionally happened, no suitable view could be found, the
camera only had to Be repacked. Moreover, we generally found it
possible to carry about the camera, after the first pictures of the
DAO NOTES BY THE PILOTOGRAPHER.
day had been taken, without re-packing, it being fixed so firmly
on ifs stand as to travel very easily, tilted over a man’s shoulder like
a sloped rifle. And then it could be set down, and a proposed yiew
examined through it, without a moment’s delay.
I have been thus particular in describing this pet tent because
experience has convinced me that success in landscape photographing
greatly depends on the photographer fecling himself at ease in his
tent—the r cling generally being that of amake-shift. I lay claim to
nothing partic ul uly original in this arrangement—it is merely a
collection and adaptati ion of a number of small improvements which
are but trifles, but tend to make up a_ perfect chal which is no
trifle.
The second small case was made of leather, and in it was carried
the camera, which was one of Kinnear’s form, and constructed to take
either a single picture of the full size, eight by six inches, or two
pictures six by four inches, or four pictures four by three inches on
cach plate—the lenses, which were Grubb’s aplanatic landscape lenses,
than which none can be better—the plate-box, with nine grooves,
each holding two plates back to back—a focusing-cloth, a macintosh,
and when necessary, a small extra supply of chemicals—still leaving
sufficient room for personal requisites. Thus my whole trayelling
material was in three very manageable packages, the tent, the
camera, and the legs.
In addition to these, a stock chest of chemicals and plates had
course to be carried about from one ‘head quarters” to another ;
and many times haye I quaked with fear on seeing it start off, shaking
hke a jelly, on the back of horses, of whom it would be complimentary
to eu they had, as an average, three sound lees apiece. Thanks to
good ee however, it survived all perils undamaged.
The collodion, perhaps the most important element in the photo-
grapher’s outfit, was ‘‘ Rouch’s ordimary bromo-iodised,” and by
iodising it some weeks, and carefully decanting it before starting, a
very uniform and satisfactory preparation was obtained.
The developer was a very weak solution of iron, sometimes not
more than a grain to an ounce of water, with a good dose of restrain-
ing acid. Even under these conditions, and using the smallest stops
supplied with the lenses, the exposures were found to vary from one
—.
NOTES BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER. 241
to ten seconds only. It is to be remembered, however, that I was
photographing in the middle of vast snow-fields, from which the elare
was so great as to render necessary, to make the light even bearable,
the wearing of coloured glass spectacles ; and sometimes in addition,
linen masks as a protection for our faces. After the application of
this weak iron solution and a careful washing, the negatives were
stored away in their dark box in the tent, and in this state kept till
the day’s work was over, when they were all deepened together with
the ordinary pyro and silyer, and fixed with a very weak solution of
cyanide.
The off days were spent in varnishing and overlooking our harvest
of negatives. Working entirely by myself and without any assistance
except in packing and unpacking, and in fixing the camera for the
different views, a work in which my friend of the pen gaye me frequent
aid, yarnishing was the only process that I ever found in the least
irksome. I should, on another occasion be disposed to leave this
process till my return home, storimg the negatives away as they were
taken in grooved boxes.
The reason why glacier scenery is so well suited for representation
by photography, namely that except in detail it exhibits no great
variety of colours, causes at the same time one of the great practical
difficulties in obtaining the pictures. Ona sunny day the contrasts
of light and shade are so violent that shadows are too apt to come
out very nearly black in a photograph. The Frontispiece affords a
good instance of this; the contrast between the glarmg white of the
ice-fall and the dark rocks on either side was so marked that it was
only by the use of exceedingly weak solutions that any picture at all
could be obtained, and even thus the triangular shadow cast by
the Schreckhorn is so dark as almost to obscure the meaning of the
view.
Jn photographing the picture with the title ‘Tce Needles,” as in many
of the others, it was really a matter of very considerable difficulty to
find a stand-point for the camera. This may be inferred from the
character of the surroundings, and when a spot had at last been
selected, and the camera planted with its feet resting in notches cut
in the ice, [ could not repress a nervous anxiety, in returning to the
camera with a plate ready for use, lest in my brief absence it should
it 1
9
242 NOTES BY THE
have disap
my fears o
Almer’s po
both tor mx
It has o
would have heen improved by the
fioure. th
impracticable, In the Frontispie
Torrenthorn, about a day's journ
anyone who wished to be thus imm
at all—and even then the figure w
as it would have been in size somewhat less than the eye of a
wer over ice, and his gre
>and tor the camera.
The two photographs entitled the Active and Extinct moulit
tured without some little ris
down into the bed of the
not ca
be let
reflecti
lying ¢
to be €
latter
I we
eraphi
difficu
the eri
those who will look into the came
we sometimes had occasion to retra
vbout, might interrupt my pr
ut in the ice, and both cam
vy his coat tails) for fear of |
hoe
toy
in cities and amongst
who were for making too near an acquaintan
tent.
The character of the skies is as fairl
a photographic picture in mere black and w
They were in truth so strongly con
pure white of the snow-fields, that
parison to be quite black. In the
ice or twice been suggested to me that the
1 most cases, as in that of the ice needles, this was obvious
on that at any moment a large boulder, some of which a
ty on the one hand of preventing peop
tical moment, and on the other of res
PHOTOGRAPHER.
reared bodily down a crevasse. I must adimit, however, that
1 this head gradually wore off, as I became acquainted with
at care in making eyerything safe,
photographs
move frequent introduction of a
y
ce again, or the view from the
ey would have been necessary fe
ortalized to appear in the pictur
ould not have been discoverabl
reed]
is were
had to
easant
‘e seen
ay had
d (the
1
k. In the former case I
glacier stream, with the P
ceedings. In the latter a w
era and artist had to be he
o0th disappearing for ever.
is fortunately free from one amnoyance to which, when photo-
men, one is only too lable, the
e from walking across at
training the curiosity of
eyen on the mountains
osity of sheep and coats,
ce with my camera and
ra. But
in the curi
y represented as it is possible for
ute to reproduce them.
rasted in their deep blue with the
they appeared at times by com-
view of the Nesthorn this contrast
is especially noticeable ; and it is, I think, a leading feature in the
truth of Swiss photographs. Whi
reproduce the infinite variety of tin
the ice. A photograph, however
st at work I longed to be able to
ts with which the sun lighted up
ood it is, can give no conception
of this wonderful play of colour, a
id this was especially the case with
NOTES BY
THE PHOTOGRAPHER. 243
the final picture, where the sunlight filled the cavern with a thousand
diffi
vent hues.
In such subjects as the Striations or the Dirt-cone this want is not
felt, and nothing could be more faithful than the way in which these
phe
is 11
the
pict
qua
trut
choi
stru
1omena are displayed.
facts of nature, the ph
1 of effect in heht and sl
ce of direction, and pi
nents.
UNWIN BROTHERS,
For subjects m which picturesque effect
t expected, where nothing is required but a simple reproduction of
otographic art is perfectly adapted ; in
wes of a more ambitious kind she must be content with more
ified success, with accurate representation of form, and such
rade as can be obtained by a judicious
‘oper management of her chemical in-
PRINTERS, DUCKLERSUURY, LONDON
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