THE MER DE GLACE, SWITZERLAND* - One of the most renowned of all the Alpine glaciers is the Mer de Glace. At a distance the vastness of this "Sea of Ice" is but partially disclosed. Still we can see upon its sides miles upon miles of pulverized rocks ground off from the adjacent cliffs. Among them, too, are boulders twenty of thirty feet square, now tossed about like nut-shells, the rocky debris of ages. Between these tracts of earth and stone is an area comparatively white and pure, and (as its name, the "Sea of Ice," would indicate) this looks as if the billows of the sea had suddenly been turned to ice, the crested waves having been instantaneously frozen while in their wildest act of tossing. At times these waves assume gigantic shape. For as the glacier pushes downward towards the valley, the various obstructions which it meets distort it into monstrous forms. Some of these gilttering waves are larger than any cathedral man has ever reared, and among them it is quite impossible to move without the aid of ropes and ladders. There is here a strange contrast between the forces of Life and Death. This frozen mass steals down between the pastures, tossing its glacial waves close to the trees and hayfields of the meadow, and one may swing a scythe and gather flowers, while perchance only a hundred yards away his neighbour by a careless step may be perishing in a deep crevasse.
* The Mer de Glace is in North-Eastern France |
