THE JARDIN. 1857.
THE JARDIN.
(9.)
A RESERVOIR OF ICE. 1857.
On the 4th of August, with a view of commencing a series of observations on the inclinations of the Mer de Glace and its tributaries, we had our theodolite transported to the Jardin, which, as is well known, lies like an island in the middle of the Glacier du Talèfre. We reached the place by the usual route, and found some tourists reposing on the soft green sward which covers the lower portion, and to which, and the flowers which spangle it, the place owes its name. Towards the summit of the Jardin, a rock jutted forward, apparently the very apex of the place, or at least hiding by its prominence everything that might exist behind it; leaving our guide with the instrument, we aimed at this, and soon left the grass and flowers behind us. Stepping amid broken fragments of rock, along slopes of granite, with fat felspar crystals which gave the boots a hold, and crossing at intervals patches of snow, which continued still to challenge the summer heat, I at length found myself upon the peak referred to; and, although it was not the highest, the unimpeded view which it commanded induced me to get astride it. The Jardin was completely encircled by the ice of the glacier, and this was held in a mountain basin, which was bounded all round by a grand and cliffy rim. The outline of the dark brown crags—a deeply serrated and irregular line—was forcibly drawn against the blue heaven, and still more strongly against some white and fleecy clouds which lay here and there behind it; while detached spears and pillars of rock, sculptured by frost and lightning, stood like a kind of defaced statuary along the ridge. All round the basin the snow reared itself like a buttress against the precipitous cliffs, being streaked and fluted by the descent of blocks from the summits. This mighty tub is the collector of one of the tributaries of the Mer de Glace. According to Professor Forbes, its greatest diameter is 4200 yards, and out of it the half-formed ice is squeezed through a precipitous gorge about 700 yards wide, forming there the ice cascade of the Talèfre. Bounded on one side by the Grande Jorasse, and on the other by Mont Mallet, the principal tributary of the Glacier de Léchaud lay white and pure upon the mountain slope. Round further to the right we had the vast plateau whence the Glacier du Géant is fed, fenced on the left by the Aiguille du Géant and the Aiguille Noire, and on the right by the Monts Maudits and Mont Blanc. The scene was a truly majestic one. The mighty Aiguilles piercing the sea of air, the soft white clouds floating here and there behind them; the shining snow with its striped faults and precipices; the deep blue firmament overhead; the peals of avalanches and the sound of water;—all conspired to render the scene glorious, and our enjoyment of it deep.
A voice from above hailed me as I moved from my perch; it was my friend, who had found a lodgment upon the edge of a rock which was quite detached from the Jardin, being the first to lift its head in opposition to the descending névé. Making a détour round a steep concave slope of the glacier, I reached the flat summit of the rock. The end of a ridge of ice abutted against it, which was split and bent by the pressure so as to form a kind of arch. I cut steps in the ice, and ascended until I got beneath the azure roof. Innumerable little rills of pellucid water descended from it. Some came straight down, clear for a time, and apparently motionless, rapidly tapering at first, and more slowly afterwards, until, at the point of maximum contraction, they resolved themselves into strings of liquid pearls which pattered against the ice floor underneath. Others again, owing to the directions of the little streamlets of which they were constituted, formed spiral figures of great beauty: one liquid vein wound itself round another, forming a spiral protuberance, and owing to the centrifugal motion thus imparted, the vein, at its place of rupture, scattered itself laterally in little liquid spherules.[A] Even at this great elevation the structure of the ice was fairly developed, not with the sharpness to be observed lower down, but still perfectly decided. Blue bands crossed the ridge of ice to which I have referred, at right angles to the direction of the pressure.
MORAINES OF THE TALÈFRE. 1857.
I descended, and found my friend beneath an overhanging rock. Immediately afterwards a peal like that of thunder shook the air, and right in front of us an avalanche darted down the brown cliffs, then along a steep slope of snow which reared itself against the mountain wall, carrying with it the débris of the rocks over which it passed, until it finally lay a mass of sullied rubbish at the base of the incline: the whole surface of the Talèfre is thus soiled. Another peal was heard immediately afterwards, but the avalanche which caused it was hidden from us by a rocky promontory. From this same promontory the greater portion of the medial moraine which descends the cascade of the Talèfre is derived, forming at first a gracefully winding curve, and afterwards stretching straight to the summit of the fall. In the chasms of the cascade its boulders are engulfed, but the lost moraine is restored below the fall, as if disgorged by the ice which had swallowed it. From the extremity of the Jardin itself a mere driblet of a moraine proceeds, running parallel to the former, and like it disappearing at the summit of the cascade.