tain visits would be an increased knowledge of physical
geography, of the agents which are continually moulding the



170 WHERE SHALL WE GO ?

surface of the earth. In the Western Alps, as akeady sug-
gested, the hfe of the people, save in its broadest outHne, is
Hkely to elude the visitor's grasp. Only if he or she is very
well prepared beforehand, and thus able to disregard the
irrelevant and unreal, to pick out the significant, is it possible
in the course of a short summer hohday to appreciate the
efiects of mountain Ufe on the inhabitants. In the Eastern
Alps matters are a httle better, for the people, often very
isolated in their longitudinal valleys, are strongly individual-
ised, have, on the whole, kept their ancient customs more
jealously than the Swiss, and, except on the main tourist
routes, are still more or less a people apart.

The best preparation for mountain hoUdays is, according
to the taste of the visitor, to read the copious EngUsh climb-
ing ' hterature,' beginning with Leshe Stephen's Playground
of Europe ; or to attempt to master some part of the enor-
mous recent output of books on the origin and structure of
the Alps, which is largely though not exclusively in German ;
or to devote attention to the still somewhat scattered studies
which have been made upon the human geography of the
region, which is specially interesting because the ' backward'
mountain peoples have still roots in Mother Earth in the
sense which we have given to this phrase in Chapter xi.

From the standpoint of human geography the uplands
show, generally in less marked form, somewhat similar
features to mountain regions. That is, there tends to be
a closer connection between modes of life and the natural
surroundings than in the case of the plains. Historically,
however, upland regions are often more interesting than the
mountains, on account of their closer connection with the
plains. Certain aspects of physical geography also can be
as well studied here as in the mountains. In most cases
upland regions are most conveniently studied in connection
with the plain tracts with which they are pohtically connected.
Those which are most hkely to be visited by the tourist are



THE CHARMS OF FRANCE 171

the Highlands of Scotland and the high ground on the west
of Great Britain generally ; Norway, which despite its
glaciers and snowfields is an upland and not a mountain
region ; the middle Rhine, the Ardennes, Brittany and so
forth. Of these the Scottish Highlands and the middle
Rhine are perhaps the most important.

To the student of human geography the plains of Central
Europe are of course supremely important, and as some one or
other of them must be crossed to reach the Alps or the south
they are of easy access. What is here the minimum for the
systematic traveller ? One must certainly, first of all, see
Paris and some of the French cathedral towns of the north
and north-west. One should also make a flying visit to
Belgium and Holland, and a German town or two may be
sandwiched in on the way to and from the Alps by those who
do not wish to make a special tour in Germany.

This brief list brings out one point at least about the
plains — that as compared aUke with mountain and upland
their chief interest is in the works of man. We are specially
fortunate also in that the part of the Mid-European plain
which is separated from us by the narrowest stretch of water
is that from whose people we have most to learn. One may
lay it down as an axiom that no able-bodied person who
can collect together the fare from England to France should
neglect to visit Paris, and the further north in Great Britain
the individual was born, the greater is the need for his making
the journey. To attempt to point out the contrasts between
English and French at this time of day, or to balance the
virtues of the one race against those of the other, would be
fooUsh and futile, but that a real contrast exists no one can
deny. Perhaps, however, in view of widespread prejudices,
it may be well to state that one contrast, which the candid
cannot fail to observe, is French seriousness as compared
with our frivohty. For this reason the first visit to France
should if possible be made in youth, when even the Briton



172 WHERE SHALL WE GO ?

has some inkling that art and Uterature and Ufe have their
serious side. Candid youth may hope to learn also that
when this deep-seated seriousness is present it is possible
to be gay on the surface ; while, on the other hand, solemnity
of demeanour, so common on our side of the channel, may
be an indispensable cloak if there is only emptiness within.

If the scandaKsed tourist reply that the seriousness of
the shops in the rue de Rivoh is not what strikes the Puritan
most, the answer has been aheady given in the beginning of
this chapter. The Parisian knows well that the average
tourist comes to Paris hoping to be shocked, and he supplies
the improprieties required in abundance. If the tourist
thinks this is the whole of Paris so much the worse for him.
But let him strive to remember that this is the capital and
the real centre of life of a people with a hving hterature, a
hving art ; a people to whom the world owes all recent great
advances in modes of locomotion, and the yet greater achieve-
ment of being able to look unafraid upon things as they are.

Since the French are first and fundamentally a hterary
people, the best preparation for a visit to their country is to
acquire some knowledge of their literature. The country
has natural beauties no doubt, it has many historic monu-
ments of great interest, but the primary importance of the
land must always be that it has moulded the people into
what they are. One wants, therefore, so far as possible to
look at the land through the eyes of its inhabitants. Geo-
graphy, especially human geography, has in France a great
number of adherents, many of whom are men with much
power of hterary expression, but apart altogether from the
works of these it is needful to be steeped in the Uterature
of the country. One should not visit Provence without
having read and re-read Daudet ; Lorraine should have been
seen through the eyes of Colette Baudoche and her lover
before the eyes of the flesh rest upon it ; the quais of Paris
lose half their significance if one does not know how Monsieur



PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL 173

Bergeret and the Abbe Coignard loved them and walked upon
them ; does not the very essence of provincial France distil
from some of the pages of Maupassant ? Perhaps also one
should not dare to visit Chartres without having seen it first
through the eyes of the hero of La Cathedrale, even though
that gentleman's concern for the salvation of a singularly
worthless soul may seem excessive — but then the author
of his being was not French by birth !

In short, to visit France with profit one must keep in mind
constantly that its primary interest Hes in the fact that it is
peopled by Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, and strive to lose
no possible opportunity of learning something about them.
A point of some interest, it may be noted in passing, is that
while the women are certainly as highly individuaUsed as
Englishwomen, even since the days of the latter 's awakening,
yet the course of social evolution here has been quite different
— a fact which may be studied alike in the hterature and on
the spot.

The plains further to the north have other tales to tell.
In the Low Countries one may see something of what pros-
perity meant to the burghers of an earlier day, whose wealth
depended upon a monopoly of a valuable overseas trade ;
something also may be seen of the effect of agelong human
conflict with the forces of nature, and its results ahke upon
man and the surface. Finally, the contrast between Dutch
art and the earlier ItaUan art of the Renaissance is so striking
that it can scarcely fail to be noticed, even by the most
inexperienced person, if he has seen both.

As to the last heading in our outhne classification, the South,
we have already emphasised the marked contrasts which it
offers to the north and centre in chmate, in natural vegetation.
in cultivated crops. It only remains to be added that it
has produced, especially at certain periods and at various
places, fine flowers of human skill and inspiration which it
were to miss half the joy of fife not to see, should opportunity



174 WHERE SHALL WE GO ?

oSer. The minimum perhaps here is Florence as a means
of studying the Renaissance, and Provence for its Roman
remains, the latter if Rome be not possible. Indeed, in any
case, the old-world cities of Provence afiord probably the best
introduction to the great empire with its mixture of savagery
and splendour, for the ruins rise from the midst of the somno-
lent towns near the Rhone with an impressiveness which one
perhaps loses in the busy modern city of Rome, with its
jumble of periods and ideals. One finds, it may be added,
also in the towns of Provence the dust, the dirt, the disregard
of elementary sanitary precautions, which seem to the
northerner who has not seen the pit villages of his own island
so eminently southern.

In the chapters which follow we shall consider successively
the Alps in their various aspects and regions ; volcanic
phenomena as illustrated in the district round Naples ; that
anomalous region between the mountains and the sea which
we call the coast far excellence — the Riviera ; the Scottish
Highlands as a type of Uplands ; and, finally, some plain
regions with their towns. In all cases the treatment is meant
to be suggestive only, and has no claim to be regarded as
comprehensive — the object is to open vistas rather than to
describe scenery.



CHAPTEE XIV

THE REALM OF SNOW AND ICE : ESSENTIAL FEATURES

OP THE ALPS

' Ehre sei Gott in der Hohe !
Er hat die Berge so hoch gestellt.'

The Alps proper extend in an irregular curve from the Col
d'Altare on the Gulf of Genoa to Vienna, a distance of some
750 miles. They fall naturally into a western and an eastern
section, which are more or less markedly contrasted with
each other. The Western Alps form a great arc of a circle,
rising steeply from the plain of Piedmont and curving round
till they acquire a north-easterly direction, to end approxi-
mately along a hne extending from Lake Constance to Lake
Como. Beyond this Une the chain is continued in a wider
but lower segment, with a general north-eastern direction,
which dies away close to the Danube in the vicinity of Vienna.
We shall call this part the Eastern Alps, as contrasted with
the Western section, but it should be noted that it does not
wholly correspond with the Eastern Alps of popular speech.
The line we have drawn, as the map shows, throws the Alps
of the Bernina group, that is the mountains of the Engadine,
into the Eastern Alps. Now the Engadine belongs pohti-
cally to Switzerland, while the rest of the Eastern Alps are,
broadly speaking, divided between the powers of Austria,
Italy, and Germany (a small part). In current speech
therefore it is usual to regard the hne between Western and
Eastern Alps as coinciding with the Swiss frontier, so that

the Engadine mountains become a part of the former. This

;7&



176 THE REALM OF SNOW AND ICE

is the classification which Baedeker adopts, the Engadine
being included in the volume on Switzerland and not in that
on the Eastern Alps. This, it should be reaHsed, is purely
a matter of practical convenience, and has nothing to do with
the structure of the mountains. Between the Eastern and
Western Alps as defined above, there is, on the other hand,
a real structural distinction which it seems worth while to
consider in a httle detail.

Through the Alps generally there runs a band of crystalHne
rocks, such as granite, gneiss, schists, etc., a band which corre-
sponds generally to the greatest heights, and may be regarded
as the apex of that great earth crumple which forms the moun-
tains. In the Western Alps this central axis is, as it were,
exposed on its southern side ; that is, it arises directly, like
a mighty wall, from the plain of Piedmont. In the Eastern
Alps, on the other hand, there intervenes between the central
crystalHne axis and the plains of Italy a broad belt of moun-
tains and hills, built up of rocks laid down in water, especially
hmestones. Such limestones, for example, form the beautiful
Dolomite mountains of Tyrol.

Turn now to the northern margin of the Alps. In
Chapter iv. we discussed the Subalpine and Prealpine cal-
careous chains which fringe the outer border of the High
Alps, but, in addition to these, clothing, as it were, the central
crystalHne chain, there is a belt of calcareous rocks, widest
to the east, where it forms important chains of calcareous
Alps, but present also in the western segment. Thus we
have to think of the long curving chain of the Alps as having
its lofty central area, which is built up of crystalHne rocks,
clothed throughout on its northern margin by a belt of often
high Calcareous Alps, v/hile the inner or southern margin
has a broad investment of similar character to the east, but
towards the west has the central axis exposed owing to the
absence of marginal Hmestone chains. The reason for the
distinction we need not consider in detail, but, in broad



THE CALCAREOUS ALPS 177

outline, it is believed to be somewhat as follows. The
mountain-building forces, which acted from the south towards
the north, were more powerful in the region of the present
plain of Piedmont than elsewhere. Here therefore the
earth crumple rose to its highest point, and here, as suggested
on p 20, great shces of rock were shoved over the top of one
another so that rock masses which lay originally south of
the rising Alps came to lie north of them, and some of the
mountains along the northern margin of the Swiss Alps,
which are built up of rocks of distinctly southern character,
represent, as it were, the beds which are missing to the south.
In the Eastern Alps the crumphng was less intense, the
mountains are not so high, and rock displacement has not
taken place on the same scale.

Calcareous rocks begin to appear in the south between
Lakes Maggiore and Como, but the most satisfactory hne of
demarcation between Western and Eastern Alps is that
which runs from Lake Constance up the valley of the Rhine
to Chur, and then via the Spliigen pass to Lake Como.

In the Western Alps, as thus defined, it will be noticed that
the mountain chain, though lofty and much glaciated, is
relatively narrow. The mountains are precipitous alike as
viewed from the Plain of Piedmont and from the vicinity
of the seacoast in the Maritime Alps ; only towards the north-
west do they slope more gently to the Swiss plateau. The
Eastern Alps are throughout wider and lower. They reach
their maximum width (about 160 miles) in the vicinity of
the Brenner pass and Lake Garda, and there advance upon
the low ground so as to divide partially the Venetian plain
from that of Lombardy. From the plain, however, they
rise much less steeply than their western continuation, and
in the extreme east, instead of ending abruptly, as do the
Western Alps, they slope gently towards the plain of
Hungary, from which plain their interior can be reached
with relative ease, owing to the long river valleys which lead

M



178 THE KEALM OF SNOW AND ICE

from the heart of the mountains to the plain. Northwards
also the Eastern Alps slope gradually to the plains of Swabia
and Bavaria.

In addition to their structural differences, their greater
mean height, their greater absolute height and their more
severe glaciation, the Western Alps differ from the Eastern,
generally speaking, in the nature of their valleys. With an
exception to be noted directly, the majority of the large
valleys in the Western Alps are transverse to the main trend
of the chain, that is the streams have a ' natural ' direction,
for they run from the crests of the mountains down the slope
of the ground towards the surrounding plains. On the
other hand, in the Eastern Alps there are a great number
of large valleys which, for a part of their course, follow
approximately the trend of the chain, i.e. are longitudinal
instead of transverse to it. As examples we may note
the Inn from Landeck to the vicinity of Kufstein, the
Upper Salzach, a part of the Enns valley, the Drave
valley, the Mur valley, the ValtelUna (Adda valley), the
Vintschgau above Meran, and so on. Such longitudinal
valleys tend to be more or less isolated, and their pre-
dominance in the Eastern Alps is one of the reasons why
the people there have on the whole retained more of the
characteristics of an earlier period than those of the Western
Alps. In Switzerland the multitude of transverse valleys
gives relative ease of access ; movement can take place from
mountain to plain or from plain to mountain with changing
conditions, social and economic. We are apt to think of
the Swiss as a typical mountain folk, but in point of fact
they are largely a manufacturing and engineering nation.
The peoplas further to the east are much more truly mountain
folk, for there less free communication between mountain
and plain is possible.

We have said that there is one great exception to the
statement that in the Western Alps the large valleys are



LONGITUDINAL AND TRxiNSVERSE VALLEYS 179

mostly transverse. This is the gigantic furrow which runs
from Martigny up the Rhone valley, is continued across a
low watershed (Furka Pass) into a part of the upper Reuss
valley, here called the Urserntal, and then across another
watershed (Oberalp Pass) into the Vorder Rhine valley to
end near the town of Chur, where the Rhine valley takes a
sharp curve. At its extremities this great furrow separates
the Calcareous from the Crystalline Alps, but in its centre
it runs through the heart of the latter. It passes through
the two cantons of Valais and Grisons, and gives to the
people of both those cantons something of the aloofness
which is common in the Eastern Alps, for, as in the latter,
communications with other regions are, or were once, rela-
tively difficult. In this connection we may note that such
longitudinal valleys often, as in the case of both the Rhine
and the Rhone in the present one, connect with transverse
valleys at their extremities, a sharp bend taking place at the
connection. In such transverse valleys there are often deep
gorges where the river has cut its way through a rocky bar.
These gorges may, in early days, ofier a considerable obstacle
to easy communication, and thus help to preserve the remote-
ness of the longitudinal stretch of the valley. Both the
cantons named, it is interesting to note, did not join the
Swiss confederation till the early nineteenth century, a fact
which may be directly connected with their geographical
isolation.

We have stated above that the Rhone-Rhine furrow at
its extremities separates the Calcareous Alps to the north
from the Crystalline Alps to the south, but this is only true
for its extremities, for near the centre we find that the
Finsteraarhorn, and the great mass of peaks near it which
lie north of the furrow, belong to the CrystalUne Alps. It
is worth notice in this connection that the more numerous
longitudinal valleys of the Eastern Alps do demarcate, more
or less sharply, in certain areas at least, the two types of



180 THE REALM OF SNOW AND ICE

rocks. Thus the furrow indicated by the Une of the Arlberg
railway from Bludenz to Landeck, then the Inn valley from
Landeck to Worgl, and successively the Enns and Salza
valleys, cuts off the Calcareous Alps to the north from the
Crystalhne range to the south, and the Pustertal, the curious
valley due to the Rienz, and then, after a low watershed, to
the Drave similarly marks the southern boundary of the
Crystalhne Alps. On the other hand, the longitudinal valley
of the Valtelhna, though parallel to the boundary, runs
entirely within the Crystalhne series.

More interesting, however, to the ordinary tourist than
the geological composition of the Alps is their covering of
snow and ice. A great number of peaks, both isolated
mountains and groups, rise above the snow hmit — that is,
more snow falls throughout the year than the summer sun
can melt. The mean snow hne in the Alps is about 9000
feet, or, in other words, above this hmit, on the average,
permanent snow is to be expected. But, owing to the
extension of the chain in latitude and longitude, the mean
figure afiords httle guide to the actual conditions to be
expected in any particular locahty. Latitude afiects the
question because, other things being equal, the more southerly
mountains should have a higher snow hmit than the more
northerly ones ; longitude afiects it because, broadly speak-
ing, precipitation diminishes towards the east, and the less
snow falls the higher will the snow hmit tend to be, the sun's
melting power being regarded as similar in the two cases.
But precipitation in the Alps is far from depending solely
upon longitude, for the extent to which the rain-bearing
winds have access to a particular area counts for much.
Thus the Valais is very dry and the snow hmit there corre-
spondingly high. Further, since isolated mountains are
notably cooler than mountain groups the snow hmit on them
is lower than would be expected from their height. The
Santis, that isolated mountain group which stands between



ORIGIN OF GLACIERS 181

the east end of the lake of Zurich and the Rhine, is an admir-
able example. It only reaches a height of 8200 feet and yet
bears permanent snow. On the great Mont Blanc group,
on the other hand, the line of permanent snow rises to nearly
10,000 feet, and on Monte Rosa to nearly 10,700 feet.

One must not suppose, however, that all surfaces above
the limits named are snow-covered. This is far from being
the case. Many slopes above the snow line are too steep to
lodge anything but a minute quantity of snow. No sooner
has the crystalUne mantle reached a certain thickness than
the force of gravity overcomes the resistance offered by
friction, and the whole mass slides downward till it comes
to a state of equihbrium on a gentler slope. As the process
is constantly repeated, there are usually well-marked lines or
channels down which the snow shps in constant avalanches,
and it is easy to observe how, even on a slope which seems
relatively moderate, rocky points or projections tend — in
technical phrase — to hberate avalanches.

The result of the constant slipping is that snow tends to
accumulate in regions of moderate slope, more especially
in those basins and troughs which are so much more abundant
in the Eastern than in the Western Alps. Owing to the
continuous pressure the loose crystals lose their envelope of
air and become compacted together to form neve or firn, and
from the neve a tongue of soUd blue ice ghdes slowly down
the mountain, generally to reach a valley, though sometimes
the incipient glacier stops short in an ice-chff from which
constant ice avalanches thunder down to the valley below.
Existing Alpine glaciers are either such truncated plateau
glaciers, or at best mere tongues of ice, valley glaciers, as they
are called, occupying valleys far too big for them. The
latter, though shrunken and insignificant as compared with
their homologues in Arctic regions, or the great glaciers of
the Ice Age, nevertheless travel far below the snow line.

Almost all the Alpine glaciers have diminished greatly



182 THE REALM OF SNOW AND ICE

within the last fifty years. That which extends farthest
down its valley at the present time is the lower Grindelwald
glacier, which descends to within 3800 feet of sea-level, or
about 5600 feet below the snow-limit in the region. Com-
pared with the conditions which exist, e.g. in Alaska, where
the glaciers come down to sea-level, this is nothing ; but it
is yet a phenomenon sufficiently striking to arouse admira-
tion and surprise in the unsophisticated tourist, and to
justify the enthusiastic description sometimes given by
novices of Switzerland as a country where one may meet a
glacier while walking along the village street.

The glacier ending or snout gives rise to a turbid rapid
stream, generally arising from an obvious ice-cave, though
often it is difficult or impossible to reach the snout owing to
the masses of loose debris piled up around it. The tourist's
first introduction to a glacier is thus more generally obtained
after a toilsome chmb up a steep valley till an opportunity
occurs to clamber down its precipitous rock wall, at the bottom