Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still cover
Greenland, Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska,
and the south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every glacier
in the world is smaller than it once was. All the world is growing
warmer, or the crop of snow-flowers is diminishing. But in contemplating
the condition of the glaciers of the world, we must bear in mind while
trying to account for the changes going on that the same sunshine that
wastes them builds them. Every glacier records the expenditure of an
enormous amount of sun-heat in lifting the vapor for the snow of which
it is made from the ocean to the mountains, as Tyndall strikingly shows.
The number of glaciers in the Alps, according to the Schlagintweit
brothers, is 1100, of which 100 may be regarded as primary, and the
total area of ice, snow, and _neve_ is estimated at 1177 square
miles, or an average for each glacier of little more than one square
mile. On the same authority, the average height above sea-level at which
they melt is about 7414 feet. The Grindelwald glacier descends below
4000 feet, and one of the Mont Blanc glaciers reaches nearly as low a
point.
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