If the contrary view were to be adopted, if it could be maintained that “glaciers, by their motion, break off masses of rock from the sides and bottoms of their valley courses, and crowd along every thing that is movable, so as to form large accumulations of débris in front, and along their sides,”[141] the conclusion could not be resisted, the greater the glacier, the greater should be the moraine.
This doctrine does not find much favour with those who have personal knowledge of what glaciers do at the present time. From De Saussure[142] downwards it has been pointed out, time after time, that moraines are chiefly formed from débris coming from rocks or soil above the ice, not from the bed over which it passes. But amongst the writings of modern speculators upon glaciers and glacier-action in bygone times, it is not uncommon to find the notions entertained, that moraines represent the amount of excavation (such is the term employed) performed by glaciers, or at least are comprised of matter which has been excavated by glaciers; that vast moraines have necessarily been produced by vast glaciers; and that a great extension of glaciers necessarily causes the production of vast moraines. Such generalisations cannot be sustained.
We descended in our track to the Lac de Combal, and from thence went over the Col de la Seigne to les Motets, where we slept; on July 13, crossed the Col du Mont Tondu to Contamines (in a sharp thunderstorm), and the Col de Voza to Chamounix. Two days only remained for excursions in this neighbourhood, and we resolved to employ them in another attempt to ascend the Aiguille d’Argentière, upon which mountain we had been cruelly defeated just eight days before.
It happened in this way.—Reilly had a notion that the ascent of the Aiguille could be accomplished by following the ridge leading to its summit from the Col du Chardonnet. At half-past six, on the morning of the 6th, we found ourselves accordingly on the top of that pass. The party consisted of our friend Moore and his guide Almer, Reilly and his guide François Couttet, myself and Michel Croz. So far the weather had been calm, and the way easy; but immediately we arrived on the summit of the pass, we got into a furious wind. Five minutes earlier we were warm,—now we were frozen. Fine snow whirled up into the air penetrated every crack in our harness, and assailed our skins as painfully as if it had been red hot instead of freezing cold. The teeth chattered involuntarily—talking was laborious; the breath froze instantaneously; eating was disagreeable; sitting was impossible!
We looked towards our mountain. Its aspect was not encouraging. The ridge that led upwards had a spiked arête, palisaded with miniature aiguilles, banked up at their bases by heavy snow-beds, which led down, at considerable angles, on one side towards the Glacier de Saleinoz, on the other towards the Glacier du Chardonnet. Under any circumstances, it would have been a stiff piece of work to clamber up that way. Prudence and comfort counselled, “Give it up.” Discretion overruled valour. Moore and Almer crossed the Col du Chardonnet to go to Orsières, and we others returned towards Chamounix.
But when we got some distance down, the evil spirit which prompts men to ascend mountains tempted us to stop, and to look [pg 190]back at the Aiguille d’Argentière. The sky was cloudless; no wind could be felt, nor sign of it perceived; it was only eight o’clock in the morning; and there, right before us, we saw another branch of the glacier leading high up into the mountain—far above the Col du Chardonnet—and a little couloir rising from its head almost to the top of the peak. This was clearly the right route to take. We turned back, and went at it.
The glacier was steep, and the snow gully rising out of it was steeper. Seven hundred steps were cut. Then the couloir became too steep. We took to the rocks on its left, and at last gained the ridge, at a point about 1500 feet above the Col du Chardonnet. We faced about to the right, and went along the ridge; keeping on some snow a little below its crest, on the Saleinoz side. Then we got the wind again; yet no one thought of turning, for we were within 250 feet of the summit.
The axes of Croz and Couttet went to work once more, for the slope was about as steep as snow-slope could be. Its surface was covered with a loose, granular crust; dry and utterly incoherent; which slipped away in streaks directly it was meddled with. The men had to cut through this into the old beds underneath, and to pause incessantly to rake away the powdery stuff, which poured down in hissing streams over the hard substratum. Ugh! how cold it was! How the wind blew! Couttet’s hat was torn from its fastenings, and went on a tour in Switzerland. The flour-like snow, swept off the ridge above, was tossed spirally upwards, eddying in tourmentes; then, dropt in lulls, or caught by other gusts, was flung far and wide to feed the Saleinoz.
“My feet are getting suspiciously numbed,” cried Reilly: “how about frost-bites?” “Kick hard, sir,” shouted the men; “it’s the only way.” Their fingers were kept alive by their work; but it was cold for the feet, and they kicked and hewed simultaneously. I followed their example too violently, and made a hole clean through my footing. A clatter followed as if crockery had been thrown down a well.
I went down a step or two, and discovered in a second that all were standing over a cavern (not a crevasse, speaking properly) that was bridged over by a thin vault of ice, from which great icicles hung in groves. Almost in the same minute Reilly pushed one of his hands right through the roof. The whole party might have tumbled through at any moment. “Go ahead, Croz, we are over a chasm!” “We know it,” he answered, “and we can’t find a firm place.”