4. The glaciers, regressing as they are now doing, are not being replenished to any appreciable extent from the so-called everlasting snow storage, and certainly not at all in proportion to their wastage.
In other words:—
1. In a number of years X the whole glacier mass of Switzerland is dissolved and reconstituted in proportions that are less than in the preceding X period.
2. The snow fallen during the period X—if present conditions are accepted—is pumped back by the atmosphere during the same period.
3. The quantity of water flowing from those glaciers in the time is greater than the means of glacier recuperation.
4. Yet the glaciers do recuperate in some proportion to their former size.
5. Consequently the condensation and congealing of atmospheric moisture must be much more effective an agent than hitherto suspected, for there is no reason why, upwards of 9,000 feet, snow should be less liable to thaw on ice than on rock surfaces. Rock and ice areas are conterminous.
Glaciers may be classed, according to their physical conformation, under the following headings:—
1. Circular Schema.—They are then enclosed in a basin more or less irregular in shape. The enclosed mass of ice remains concave as long as it is lower than the rim of the basin. But it becomes convex in the centre when it rises above the horizontal line joining the opposite rims of the basin.