“Yes; snow at a certain height, while lower that snow becomes rain.”
“Well, then, this valley we are looking at ought to be snow, not ice.”
“Snow is ice in the form of light flocculent crystals, is it not? Why, at home, if you take up moist snow and press it hard in your hands, you can almost turn it into ice. If you placed it in a press, and applied much force, it would become perfectly clear ice. Well, there’s pressure enough here to turn it into ice; and besides, the snow is always melting in the hot sun, and then freezing again at night.”
“Yes, I see!” cried Saxe; “but it does seem queer. Why, we’ve got summer here, with flowers and bees and butterflies, and if we go down to that glacier, I suppose we can step on to winter.”
“Yes, my lad; and if we like to climb a little higher up the ice, we can place ourselves in such severe winter that we should be frozen to death.”
“Then we will not go,” said Saxe, laughing. “You told me one day— No, you didn’t, it was in a story I read, ‘man is best as he is.’ But I say, Mr Dale, how about the river? doesn’t it come from the glacier?”
“Yes, of course. These vast glaciers are the sources of the great Swiss and Italian rivers. The Rhine and the Rhone both begin up in the mountains here, and the Aar and the Reuss start pretty close to them. When we get down here you will see how this stream runs from a little ice-cave.”
“But what makes it so dirty?”
“My good fellow, we have come to climb, and my name is not Barlow. You must read and search out these things. You know how that stone or mass fell with a roar lower down?”
“Not likely to forget it, sir,” replied Saxe, with a laugh.