there is a river of ice in switzerland, which, taking its rise on the hoary summit of mont blanc, flows through a sinuous mountain-channel, and terminates its grand career by liquefaction in the vale of chamouni. a mighty river it is in all respects, and a wonderful one—full of interest and mystery and apparent contradiction. it has a grand volume and sweep, varying from one to four miles in width, and is about twelve miles long, with a depth of many hundreds of feet. it is motionless to the eye, yet it descends into the plain continually. it is hard and unyielding in its nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. it is not a half solid mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid, clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids, cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water—as if a grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom.

it is being melted perpetually too. the fierce sun of summer sends millions of tiny streamlets down into its interior, which collect, augment, cut channels for themselves through the ice, and finally gush into the plain from its lower end in the form of a muddy river. even in winter this process goes on, yet the ice-river never melts entirely away, but holds on its cold, stately, solemn course from year to year—has done so for unknown ages, and will probably do so to the end of time. it is picturesque in its surroundings, majestic in its motion, tremendous in its action, awful in its sterility, and, altogether, one of the most impressive and sublime works of god.

this gigantic glacier, or stream of ice, springing, as it does, from the giant-mountain of europe, is appropriately hemmed in, and its mighty force restrained, by a group of titans, whose sharp aiguilles, or needle-like peaks, shoot upward to a height little short of their rounded and white-headed superior, and from whose wild gorges and riven sides tributary ice-rivers flow, and avalanches thunder incessantly. leaving its cradle on the top of mont blanc, the great river sweeps round the aiguille du géant; and, after receiving its first name of glacier du géant from that mighty obelisk of rock, which rises 13,156 feet above the sea, it passes onward to welcome two grand tributaries, the glacier de léchaud, from the rugged heights of the grandes jorasses, and the glacier du talèfre from the breast of the aiguille du talèfre and the surrounding heights. thus augmented, the river is named the mer de glace, or sea of ice, and continues its downward course; but here it encounters what may be styled “the narrows,” between the crags at the base of the aiguille charmoz and aiguille du moine, through which it steadily forces its way, though compressed to much less than half its width by the process. in one place the glacier du géant is above eleven hundred yards wide; that of the léchaud is above eight hundred; that of talèfre above six hundred—the total, when joined, two thousand five hundred yards; and this enormous mass of solid ice is forced through a narrow neck of the valley, which is, in round numbers, only nine hundred yards wide! of course the ice-river must gain in depth what it loses in breadth in this gorge, through which it travels at the rate of twenty inches a day. thereafter, it tumbles ruggedly to its termination in the vale of chamouni, under the name of the glacier des bois.

the explanation of the causes of the rise and flow of this ice-river we will leave to the genial and enthusiastic professor, who glories in dilating on such matters to captain wopper, who never tires of the dilations.

huge, however, though this glacier of the mer de glace be, it is only one of a series of similar glaciers which constitute the outlets to that vast reservoir of ice formed by the wide range of mont blanc, where the snows of successive winters are stored, packed, solidified, and rendered, as it were, self-regulating in their supplies of water to the plains. and the mont blanc range itself is but a portion of the great glacial world of switzerland, the area occupied by which is computed at 900 square miles. two-thirds of these send their waters to the sea through the channel of the rhine. the most extensive of these glaciers is the aletsch glacier, which is fifteen miles in length. it is said that above six hundred distinct glaciers have been reckoned in switzerland.

this, good reader, is but a brief reference to the wonders of the glacial world. it is but a scratching of the surface. there is a very mine of interesting, curious, and astonishing facts below the surface. nature is prodigal of her information to those who question her closely, correctly, and perseveringly. even to those who observe her carelessly, she is not altogether dumb. she is generous; and the god of nature has caused it to be written for our instruction that, “his works are wonderful, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”

we may not, however, prolong our remarks on the subject of ice-rivers at this time. our travellers at chamouni are getting ready to start, and it is our duty at present to follow them.