New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-07-18

huet OStp IN tuONs
THE GLACIERS.
Two OF the most famous Glaciers In switzerland,
botb outlets but not the only outlets OF the Mer de
Glaze are within plain sight Of this village, above
and below it, They seem but hall mile distant 2t
respectively, but are really twice 30 iar' Inc
Glacier des Bosom, below, Is the inner spectaeie'
e II seems Ia have built itself up bed or plat
form nj the rocks and gravel it has been indus
triousy bringing down these thousands OF years so
that ts present base appears some fifteen or twenty
feet land NAV be forty or fifty above the wooded
oround on either side The Glacier des Bots, above
ia rather less conspicuous, but is the more nat
ursl outlet Of the Mer de Glaze and discharges
FIVE times the water OF its rival; the Aryeiron,
an ample. impetuous mill-stream, flowing from be-
heath it, and forming the larger half Of the Arye,
at their junction just below
A glacier the reader will have understood, is the
outlet or lower extremity of the Mer de Glace,
or some similar lake of snow ice, where IT precp-
itates itself over the brow of the lower Alpine ridge
into the valley below II is Niagara poured down the
side of the Aleghanes where they are steepest and
frozen by an Arctic Winter into great blocks and
pillars Of eternal ice, whereof the upper strata
appear as pyramids generally upright large, and
Init together at the base, but sharpened toward
the tops. and growing more pointed as the Sum-
ner advances and as they descend so as to feel the
milder atmosphere of the valley. Descend they
do and must. though 10 life no motion is percep-
tible, and the stern silence is only broken BY the
riyuets bursting out and pouring IN miniature cas-
cades from this side and that, TO unite with the
fuller stream which flows from cavernous aper-
ture at the lower end, perchance by the fail oil
al undermined portion OF ice on one side or the
other or the rolling down of a rock which mas,
by the melting away of subjacent ices, been grad
ually undermined and left without support high
up on one side or the other OF course there IS
some movement in the glacier, torpid as it seems,
else the lower part would melt wholly away dur
ing the Summer, giving place to a mere cascade or
mountain torrent. Byron forcibly says:
The glaciers cold and restless
Moves ard day BY days
and it is calculated that this advance averages
some six feet per day though in looking on 1t you
would deem the idea Of motion as misplaced here
as in connection with an irOn-mine or Mont Blanc
itself
Viewed from distance, glacier seems not only
much nearer than ii really is-its immense magnl-
tude belittliDg the distance-but il seems an easy
matter to step up to either side and put your hand
on il vet this is far from being the case. For not
only has the glacier built itself up high bed or plat
form of the rocks pebbles and gravel IL has through
countless ages brought down from the mountains
ab0ye-a bed whose sides are at once steep and
treacherOus being as nearly perpendicular as thelt
materials will lie-but the rolling OF rocks and
pebbles from the sides. with the washing OF sand
and gravel from the base by the streams which
from time to time burst out now at this point
then at another (aided also by the circumstance that
each glacier expands during a series of cold sea
sons and ia contracted by succession of relatively
hot Ones) has envirOned each with at least one
heavy nOrdine, or ridge of stones and pulverized
granite, from rocks weighing hundred tuns each
down to the finest sand and noted at the foot of
des Bots bed Of fine clay, manifestly of kindred
origin. Each glacier thus rudely resembles
C., lis of hIOb
its fosse or moat and its covering bank approach
only less high than its own walls. AT the bottom
of des Bots there are in places two or three of
these mOraines, one behind another, the most dis
tant often covered with scanty heritage and even
shrubs, proving that the glacier has at some re-
mote period extended considerably further than 1t
now does. There is no temerity therefore in plant
ing your house Gas is commonly done) just at the
foot of glacier, which OyerhaDgs and seems to
threaten but will never destroy it,-unless Mont
Blanc should be transformed into a volcano and
his eternal SHOWS suddenly melted-and then one
place in any of these Alpine valleys would be about
as safe as another. The threatened dog may
live longest" here as well as elsewhere, being
likely to have the earliest premontl0n and clear
est appreciation of the danger.
should have said ere this that the Mer de Glace
itself has its morane-brOad and high, and often
double OF triple-as well as its bjacent glaciers
i am not sure that / could clearly evolve the law
by which movable rocks imbedded in ice tend to
work gradually from the center toward the sides
of the lake or channel wherein they lie, but pre-
sumo the fact is undisputed These mordines,
composed of more or less broken and trlturated
granite, upheaved from inconcevable depths by
the volcanic commissions of our planets infancy,
are the more immediate source of the crystals,
aeates, comedians, &c, extensively wrought and
sold here
sat for an hour or two one rainy afternoon on
the crest Of the nearest and most recent mOrGine,
at the foot of the Glacier des Bois watching and
studying its economy Twice, the crash OF con-
siderable pillars or bastiOns of ice undermined by
water and falling outward, startled me from rev.
eIie frequently pebbles and small stones, from
which the support had melted away, fell from near
the summit of the glacier, rafting down its side
and bounding some distance outward from ITS base
and there was quite rock right in front of my po-
sition which was evidently just ready to tumble,
but stubbOrnly refused to make the plunge in pres
ence of a stranger The ice at the foot of the
glacier is only separated by single mOraine from
the belt of hemlOcks which here confront it but
these grow on the summit and sides of an old mo-
raine-with what Caesar or Pharaoh cOtempo-
rary, who can tell A venerable apple.tree (but
think no appe-tree usually bears in this valley
stands in the rank green grass very close to the
hemlocks, and perhaps ten rods from the extrem-
ity of the glacier the chalet of the farmer stands
ON the open glade lew rods lurther down toward
the Arye. The Arveiron however does not issue
from the lower (western) end of the glacier, but
from beneath its southern side several rods nearer
the foot of the mountain, running off mile or so
nearly parallel with the Arye before joining it,
The Arve may be said TO have its source in the
glacier of Argentiere, three or four miles further
up the valley, though rivulets of course descend
to il from the SUBMITS of mountains still futher
north and east.
LIFE AT CHiMOUNlX
Most European villages are absurdly built those
r ,ohc H.. nf oil