True Tales of Mountain Adventures

ng things mountain districts have

s, where there is a great deal of snow in winter, and where it is never very hot even in summer. They are also found in northern

nd press it, you get an icy snow-ball. If you squeeze anything you make it warmer. The pressing down of the great mass of snow is like the squeezing of the ball in your hand. It makes it warmer, so that the snow first half melts and then gradually becomes ice. You bring about t

glaciers are always moving. The force of gravity makes them slide down over their rocky beds. They flow so slowly that we cannot see them move, in fact most of them advance only a few inches a day. But if a line of stakes is driven into the ice straight across a glacier, we shall notice in a few weeks that they have moved dow

the Lower Part o

t snow. The snow-line

of ice composing it is so great that it takes a long time before it disappears, and a big glacier sometimes flows down far below the wild and rocky parts of mountains and reaches the

rocky bed. High up, where snow still lies, these chasms in the ice are often bridged over, and if a person ventures on one of these snow bridges it may break, and he may fall down the crevasse, which may be so deep that no bottom can be found to it. He is then either killed by the fall or froze

ream, scarred all over with little channels full of water running merrily down the melting rough surf

r Table

ountain after a terrific Storm of Snow and Wind. The lo

acier, and have been carried along by the slowly moving ice. The bands in the centre have come there, owing to the meeting higher up of two glaciers, which have joined their side heaps of rubbish, and have henceforward flowed on as

hey have covered the bit of ice they lie upon, and prevented it from melting, while the glacier all round has gradually sunk. After a time the leg of the table begins to feel the sun strike it also. It melts away on the sout

This shields the glacier from the sun, the surrounding ice sinks, and eventually we find cones which are lightly

tsch Glacier, the most extensive in the Alps, would, it has been said, i

p his position in the middle, where the ice moves quickest, leaving his luggage at the edge, where it goes slowest. Thus he intended to travel by express, leaving his things to follow by goods train! However, after some ti

and Crevas

e of the surface of a Gl

tches, the ice polishes the rock till it is quite smooth, writing upon it in characters never to be effaced the history of past events. Another thing which proves to us that these icy rivers were in many places where there are no glaciers now, is the boulders we find scattered about. These boulders are sometimes of a kind of rock not found anywhere near, and so we know that they m

erly there were huge glaciers, there are to-day none. The Ice Age was the time when these great glaciers existed, but t