2-798-449 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The great glacier of Lauteraar, 1844. The Lauteraargletscher in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland. Glaciologist James David Forbes on the movement of glaciers: 'The common form of glacier is a river of ice filling a valley, and pouring down its masses into other valleys yet lower. It is not a frozen ocean, but a frozen torrent. Its origin or fountain is in the ramification of the higher valleys and gorges, which descend amongst the mountains, perpetually snow-clad. But what gives to a glacier its most peculiar and characteristic feature is, that it does not belong exclusively or necessarily to the snowy region...The very huts of the peasantry are sometimes invaded by this moving ice, and many persons now living have seen the full ears of corn touching the glacier, or gathered ripe cherries from the tree, with one foot standing on the ice'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.