Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/416

356 The weathering of the walls of crevasses, which obscures the internal structure of the glacier, has led some to conclude that the stratification which is seen in the higher glacier-regions is obliterated in the lower ones. Others, Agassiz and Mr. John Ball for example, have disputed this opinion, and my own experiences accord with those of these accurate observers. It is, undoubtedly, very difficult to trace stratification in the lower ends of the Alpine glaciers; but we are not, upon that account, entitled to conclude that the original structure of the ice has been obliterated. There are thousands of crevasses in the upper regions upon whose walls no traces of bedding are apparent, and we might say, with equal unreasonableness, that it was obliterated there also. Take an axe, and clear away the ice which has formed from water trickling down