There were also butterflies of all colours, now flying from flower to flower, and now alighting on the moist sandy banks of pools and small streams in countless numbers. Large nests of wasps hung from the boughs of the trees, and in open places the leaves and flowers of the bushes and other plants abounded with diamond and other beetles; while at night the air was lighted up with fire-flies of various sizes, which, from their brilliancy, almost gave the idea that a part of the stars had fallen from the firmament, and were floating about without a resting place.
The Organ Mountains are not very lofty, and, indeed, the highest point to which Mr. Gardner ascended, was not above 7,500 feet above the level of the sea; but he describes the view as being extremely beautiful. "The base of the mountains," he says, "was covered by a mass of snow-white clouds, spread out apparently about 3,000 feet below the point on which he stood, and shortly after sunrise this space appeared like a vast ocean covered with foam, through which the tops of the lower mountains rose like islands. In another place the valley below looked like an extensive lake, surrounded on all sides by mountains; but as the sun gained power, the clouds gradually disappeared."
MOUNTAINS OF NORTH AMERICA.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
The Rocky Mountains form the principal chain of mountains in North America. They are connected with the Andes by the Mexican Cordillera. The branch of the Andes which divides the seas at the isthmus of Panama is very low, being only 633 feet above the level of the Pacific Ocean; and the Mexican mountains lose the appearance of a chain and spread out into a table-land from five to nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and from 100 to 300 miles in breadth; across this plain are several volcanoes, and beyond it begin the Rocky Mountains, the summits of which rise from 12,000 to 15,000 feet above the level of the sea. These mountains are about the same distance from the Pacific Ocean as the Alleghanies are from the Atlantic. Their general appearance is black, rugged, and precipitous; but though an expedition under Captains Lewis and Clarke crossed them, very little is known respecting their extent, and their numerous peaks are unnamed. It is supposed that there are some volcanoes amongst them, as pumice stones of a reddish colour, and remarkably perfect, frequently descend the Missouri. The great rivers which spring from the Rocky Mountains, such as the Arkansas on the east, and the Oregon or Columbia on the west, wind through their declivities for more than 100 leagues before they escape to the plains. In following the beds of such streams, travellers pass through the range without any considerable ascent or obstruction. Following the Platte, which is one of the principal southern branches of the Missouri, the traveller finds a road even to lake Buenaventura, on the Pacific plains, that needs little labour to adapt it to the passage of horses and waggons. The southern part of this range is called the Masseme Mountain; and a single peak of these mountains, called Mount Pike, is seen as a land-mark for an immense distance over the plains of Arkansas and Texas. Some very beautiful plants, now common in our gardens, such as the Clarkia, the Ribes sanguineum, &c., were brought from the Rocky Mountains and their neighbourhood.
THE ALLEGHANIES.
The Alleghany Mountains are composed of three, four, and in some places of five parallel chains, extending in a north-east direction from Alabama to New Brunswick, over a space 1,100 miles in length, with a breadth varying from 100 to 150 miles, and a height of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet. "They are almost everywhere clothed with forests, and interspersed with delightful valleys. Between the Alleghanies and the great western chain, the Ozark Mountains, from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in height, and 500 miles in length, extend along the middle of the great valley of the Mississippi in a south and north direction. The Arkansas and Red River are the only streams that have cut a passage through these mountains, which, though low, occupy a great breadth, and are covered with wood." The Magnolias, Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and other similar plants, all come from the Alleghany mountains and the adjoining valleys.
EUROPEAN MOUNTAINS.
THE ALPS.
The ancients called all mountains that had sharp peaks covered with snow, alps; but in modern times, the name is applied only to a chain of European mountains extending from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. These mountains form a vast barrier, dividing Italy from the rest of Europe, and they are closely united with the Apennines on the west, and with the Balkhan on the east, the latter forming a mountain chain which extends through a great part of Turkey and Greece. From its being necessary to traverse the Alps to enter Italy by land, this chain is familiar to most European travellers, and the names of its principal mountains are well known. Of these Mont Cenis and the Simplon are celebrated for the roads which have been made over them; the Great St. Bernard is remarkable for its well known convent; St. Gothard is the centre of the chain; and Mont Blanc is the loftiest mountain in Europe, though it is very inferior in height to the mountains of Asia or America, as its highest peak is not quite 16,000 feet above the level of the sea. Mount Rosa, Mount Jura, and the Jungfrau are also celebrated mountains of the Alps.
The scenery of the Alps is principally distinguished by the numerous lakes which adorn the valleys, and by the glaciers or fields of ice which are found in great abundance in various parts, and which are unknown in either the Andes or the Himalayas. These extraordinary phenomena lie just below the boundary of eternal snow, and are thus described by an able writer on the subject: — The lower edge of the snow line differs much from that above it, and might more properly be called the ice line, because the snow, owing to the influence of rain, the heat of the sun, and the heat of the earth, is there partially melted every summer, and frozen again every winter, forming an icy boundary. This boundary is, in fact, what is called a glacier. Above this zone, the region of the glaciers, the snow is seldom moistened by rain or softened by the rays of the sun. The glaciers are not stationary, but occasionally move downwards, with a motion more or less rapid. These movements of the glaciers sometimes take place unexpectedly, as was experienced some years ago by a priest of the Grindelwald, who, along with a chamois hunter, was travelling in the Alps, when they felt the glacier on which they were, moving under them. The travellers were resting themselves, and had lighted their pipes, when suddenly a frightful noise resembling thunder was heard. Everything around them immediately began to move: their fowling-pieces, which they had laid on the ice, slided away from them, and masses of rock, which a few moments before lay quietly on the surface of the glacier, bounded about in all directions. At a short distance, some fissures closed with a loud noise like that of cannon, and forced the water contained in them several fathoms upwards. New rents, from ten to twelve feet deep, burst open with indescribably fearful noises, and the mass of ice, on which the travellers were reclining, detached itself and moved gradually downwards for several yards. The terror of the unfortunate priest may be imagined, as he thought some dreadful convulsion of nature was approaching; but the chamois hunter, who was more accustomed to the dangers of the ice, predicted that the movement would not be of long duration; and, in fact, in a few seconds all was still again, the glacier became fixed, and the dead silence was interrupted only by the call of the marmot.
The total number of glaciers in the whole range of the Alps may be between 500 and 600, but the most remarkable are those of the Grindelwald, the lower one of which is very beautiful; and the immense mass formed by the glaciers which descend from the western base of Mont Blanc, south east of Geneva, and to which the name of Mer de Glace or Sea of Ice is applied. The surface of the ice in this glacier is extremely rough and uneven; and its colour is a deep blue, which in many places passes into green, and only becomes white when it approaches the snow line. The ice forms first in crystals, which partially thaw, and then freeze again; so that in a short time the crystals become changed into a number of ridges and grooves of solid ice, which look at a little distance like the waves of the sea; and, indeed, a fanciful imagination might easily suppose that the waves of the sea had been suddenly frozen, and left in the state in which they now appear. At the lower extremity of each glacier is generally a large cavern or vault, sustained by massive columns of ice. "These grottos are sometimes a hundred feet high, and from fifty to eighty feet wide, but their dimensions and shapes vary greatly. Their sides, acted on by the thawing, are smooth, so that on them the reticular texture of the glacier-ice can be seen with the greatest distinctness. Through these apertures all the water is discharged which is collected by the melting of the lower surface of the glacier. In summer the stream issuing from them is but small, but in summer it gushes out in a plenteous torrent." In many parts the glaciers are traversed by a smaller or greater number of chasms, as though the whole mass had been fractured in different places. "This is easily to be accounted for, as in these parts the bottom of the valley in which the glacier lies, usually forms a rapid slope, and is at the same time uneven and rugged. Where the icy masses descend a steep declivity, or are propelled over very broken ground, their surfaces present nothing but a continual succession of irregular and frequently deep chasms, and cliffs of ice rising from twenty to a hundred feet high. Where the slope of the valley exceeds thirty or forty degrees, the beds of ice break into fragments, which get displaced, upheaved, and piled together in every fantastic variety of form. Masses of ice, resembling steeples or towers, and others having the form of walls, rise with sharp points or edges to a hundred feet, representing an immense ruin converted into ice. But these icy masses are subject to continual changes." "Every moment in summer," says a modern traveller "these steeples, walls, or columns break down partly or entirely; and when the icy masses are standing on the edge of a perpendicular or precipitous rock, they tumble down with a loud but peculiar noise, and in falling are broken up into many thousand pieces, which, when viewed from afar, resemble the cataract of a torrent. This is one of the most extraordinary and grandest views the traveller can enjoy in the Alps."
The chasms in the glaciers are of various kinds, some opening in the day, and some in the night. The former are by far the least dangerous; and the following very graphic account of the formation of one, has been handed down to us by an eye-witness. "When I was once walking," says Hugi, "on the glacier of the Lower Aar, at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the weather being very hot, I heard a peculiar noise: advancing directly towards the spot whence it proceeded, I had hardly walked thirty or forty paces before I felt that the whole icy mass trembled under my feet. The trembling soon ceased, and then began again, continuing by starts. I quickly discovered the cause. The ice was splitting and forming a chasm. Before my eyes it split suddenly over a space of twenty or thirty feet in length; so rapidly that I could not keep up with it. Then it appeared to cease, or rather the rent proceeded more slowly, until the trembling returned, and the splitting proceeded at an accelerated rate. Several times I advanced to the end of the new formed rent, and laid myself down on the ice, to look into the gulf that was being formed." He proceeds to say that the chasm continued to open till it was about an inch and a half wide, and four or five feet deep. Some days afterwards, he again visited the place, when he found that the opening had increased to the breadth of about six inches; and that another rent had formed parallel with the first, but at about twelve feet distant. These rents, it seems, only open during hot weather, and when rain is going to fall; but they sometimes increase so rapidly, as quite to change the appearance of the glacier, and to render places impassable, that only a few weeks before were perfectly safe.