Moraine

“ I do not like to make insinuations, but I do think the above statistics darkly suggest that these people over here drink this detestable water “on the sly.”
We climbed the moraine on the opposite side of the glacier, and then crept along its sharp ridge a hundred yards or so, in pretty constant danger of a tumble to the glacier below. The fall would have been only one hundred feet, but it would have closed me out as effectually as one thousand, therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and was glad when the trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing to assault head-first. ”

“ Nothing can be more picturesque than the situation of this sitio. It is surrounded by magnificent masses of rock, which seem embedded in the forest, as it were; and by its side a cascade comes leaping down through the trees, so hidden by them that, though you hear the voice of the water constantly, you only see its glimmer here and there among the green foliage. The house itself stands on a fine specimen of moraine, flanked on one side by a bank of red morainic soil, overtopped by boulders. It is so built in among huge masses of rock that its walls seem half natural. ”

“ By a slightly-dangerous climb we got up the glacialised surface of the rock, and on to the top of the great moraine which is heaped up against it. The frequent landslips which take place from the face of the moraine-cliff do great havoc among the trees that grow on top, leaving their roots bare, so that they die, and are easily thrown over. The forest is very open, and some of the trees are of good size. The principal trees which I observed at an altitude of 1800 feet were the black-birch, the iron-wood or batta, the remu, totara-cedar (a second species of Podocarpus) , broad leaf. ”

“ Topography.—The topography of the ground moraine is in general the topography already described (p. 85) in considering the modification of preglacial topography effected by ice deposition. As left by the ice, its surface was undulating. The undulations did not take the form of hills and ridges with intervening valleys, but of swells and depressions standing in no orderly relationship to one another. Undrained depressions are found in the ground moraine, but they are, as a rule, broader and shallower than the "kettles" common to terminal moraines. ”

“ Those made beneath the ice and back from its edge constitute the ground moraine, and are distinguished from the considerable marginal accumulations which, under certain conditions, are accumulated at or near the margin. These marginal accumulations are terminal moraines. Associated with the moraines which are the deposits of the ice directly, there are considerable bodies of stratified gravel and sand, the structure of which shows that they were laid down by water. ”

“ And when we bear in mind that all the existing forests of the Sierra are growing on comparatively fresh moraine soil, and that the range itself has been recently sculptured and brought to light from beneath the ice-mantle of the glacial winter, then many lawless mysteries vanish, and harmonies take their places. ”

“ All of the grand fir forests about the valley are planted upon moraines, and from any of the mountain-tops the shape and extent of the neighboring moraines may always be surely determined by the firs growing upon them. Some pines will grow upon shallow sand and crumbling granite, but those luxuriant forests of the silver firs are always upon a generous bed of glacial drift. I discovered a moraine with smooth pebbles upon a shoulder of the South Dome, and upon every part of the Yosemite upper and lower walls. ”

“ In less than half an hour’s search, I found two of the serpentine and one of the limestone pebbles with scratches, which would be called glacial if they were found in a modern moraine, though not such as you would select for examples for a museum. Still I searched this year in some recent moraines quite as long without finding better. As to the age of the beds, there is no doubt of their belonging to the Lower Miocene, the marine fossils of which we collected in strata both below and above them. ”

“ Three large moraines are to be found on the southern side of the valley, their lower extremity about 5,000, their upper origin nearly 8,000 feet above the sea. No moraines are seen where the chain does not reach an altitude of 7,000 feet, though angular boulders are not uncommon. The upper mountain contours are invariably rounded, and smoothed off, and the sides are scooped too widely for the depressions to have been caused by water. ”

“ Moraines, masses of rock which become detached from the hill-side and find lodgment on a glacier are so called, and are further described as lateral, medial, terminal, or ground moraines, according as they lie along its edges, its middle, are piled up in mounds at its end, or falling down crevasses, are ground against the rock underneath. ”

“ Some of these can be followed only when success has brought comparative leisure; but all can be kept in mind; one or all can be aimed at throughout our careers, and according to our individual strength."
The Glacial Moraine in Pennsylvania.—We have already mentioned the fact that Professor H. Carvill Lewis has traced the great glacial terminal moraine along its whole course through Pennsylvania. ”

“ Broad and deep moraines, ancient and well weathered, are spread over the lower regions, rough and comparatively recent and unweathered moraines over the middle and upper regions, alternating with bare ridges and domes and glacier-polished pavements, the highest in the icy recesses of the peaks, raw and shifting, some of them being still in process of formation, and of course scarcely planted as yet. ”

“ On the eastern side of the narrow valley there are several moraines, as seemingly artificial as is the river barranca. If the one is scooped out by violent action of the elements, the other is heaped up by like violent action. They are as high as the bed of the river is deep. ”

“ They bear, in their heaped character, and the regularity of their course, more resemblance to the moraines on the edge of the glacier, than to any other object, natural or artificial, with which we happen to be acquainted. ”

“ All the forests of the Sierra are growing upon moraines. But moraines vanish like the glaciers that make them. Every storm that falls upon them wastes them, cutting gaps, disintegrating boulders, and carrying away their decaying material into new formations, until at length they are no longer recognizable by any save students, who trace their transitional forms down from the fresh moraines still in process of formation, through those that are more and more ancient, and more and more obscured by vegetation and all kinds of post-glacial weathering. ”

“ A wonderful display of recessional moraines occurs from the Great Lakes south, where they are festooned one within another and remain almost exactly as they were formed during pauses in retreat of great lobes of ice during the closing stages of the Ice Age. ”

“ And thus it is that in the hilly regions at the base of the higher Alps, and even out upon the low-grounds and plains, we encounter that remarkable commingling of erratics which has been described above. Not infrequently, indeed, we find one set of moraines superposed upon another, just as in the low-grounds of northern Germany, etc., we may observe one boulder-clay overlying another, the erratics in which give evidence of transport in different directions. ”

“ Across many a busy stream, from meadow to meadow, lies your flowery way; mountains all about you, few of them hidden by irregular foregrounds. Gradually ascending, other mountains come in sight, peak rising above peak with their snow and ice in endless variety of grouping and sculpture. Now your attention is turned to the moraines, sweeping in beautiful curves from the hollows and cañons, now to the granite waves and pavements rising here and there above the heathy sod, polished a thousand years ago and still shining. ”

“ I pass to th' Immortal arms above,
Before I even brush the skirts of Woe.
"I leave my aged parents here below,
With none to comfort them. Maurine, sweet friend!
Be kind to them, and love them to the end,
Which may not be far distant.
And I leave
A soul immortal in your charge, Maurine.
[Pg 114] From this most holy, sad and sacred eve,
Till God shall claim her, she is yours to keep,
To love and shelter, to protect and guide."
She touched the slumb'ring cherub at her side,
And Vivian gently bore her, still asleep,
And laid the precious burden on my breast. ”

“ Now it happened that three good fairies who resided in the neighbourhood of the Oetz-Thal, beneath an enormous mountain peak called the Morin, had been invisibly active in the saving of the goat-herd’s boy.
The boy grew up and always bore in his mind an [20] attraction to the highest peaks of the mountains; he became a hardy Alpine climber and clever mountain shot, and as such a secret impulse ever pushed him to the heights above Morin, for there—so said the legend—was the Paradise of animals; there were herds of gazelles and stone-bucks, and no huntsman had ever succeeded in approaching them. ”

“ The time spent on the seventy training worlds of transition morontia culture associated with the Edentia age of mortal ascension, is the most settled period in an ascending mortal's career up to the status of a finaliter; this is really the typical morontia life. While you are rekeyed each time you pass from one major cultural world to another, you retain the same morontia body, and there are no periods of personality unconsciousness. ”

“ In the spacious kitchen of Doctor Morani were assembled a body of young rosy lasses in laced bodices, and short, bright-colored petticoats, come down from the neighboring mountains for the olive-gathering, much as Irish laborers cross over to England for the hay-making season. These girls arrive in troops from their native villages among the hills, carrying on their heads a sackful of the flour of dried beans and a lesser quantity of dried chestnuts. They offer their services to the inhabitants of the valley at the rate of four pence English a day ”

“ Her cheeks glowed with a color which put to shame the rouge-pot in her toilet-closet. She was more like some tall Norse goddess, with the breath of the sea and [14] the pines in her nostrils, than a figure in a world of luxury and pampered ease. Her eyes, clear and full, were strangers to qualms and apprehensions, and the thought of a possible scene with this impertinent Frenchman gave them a sparkle which added to their shadowed luster. In the thinking, she did Monsieur Mornay the honor to add just one more patch to her chin. ”

“ For seven years Father Oliver had walked up and down that road, for there was nowhere else for him to walk; he walked that road till he hated it, but he did not think that he had suffered from the loneliness of the parish as much as Moran. He had been happier than Moran in Bridget Clery's cottage—a great idea enabled him to forget every discomfort; and 'we are never lonely as long as our idea is with us,' he ejaculated. 'But Moran is a plain man, without ideas, enthusiasms, or exaltations. He does riot care for reading, or for a flower garden, only for drink. ”

“ Go curl your hair; and please your own Maurine,
By putting on that lovely grenadine.
Not wolf, nor ogre, neither Caliban,
Nor Mephistopheles, you'll meet to‐night,
But what the ladies call 'a nice young man'!
Yet one worth knowing—strong with health and might
Of perfect manhood; gifted, noble, wise;
Moving among his kind with loving eyes,
And helpful hand; progressive, brave, refined,
After the image of his Maker's mind."
"Now, now, Maurine!" cried Helen, "I believe
It is your lover coming here this eve. ”

“ As we continued to descend, the clear green stream of the Arc, sometimes wild and angry, foams and roars among her masses of black stone, sometimes flows mildly and brightly, retreating from the road in coquettish curves, half hiding itself in a fringe of birch and larch and fir, and issuing again to smile at her admirers and receive their homage. Nothing can surpass in loveliness the valley of the Maurienne. Modane is a wretched hole, beautifully placed, a blot in Paradise; the noble road takes alternately both sides of the narrow valley. ”

“ As sunlight flickers o’er a bed of bloom;
And, like some slim young sapling of the wood,
Her slender form leaned slightly; and her hair
Fell ’round her loosely, in long curling strands
All unconfined, and as by loving hands
Tossed into bright confusion.
Standing there,
Her starry eyes uplifted, she did seem
Like some unearthly creature of a dream;
Until she started forward, gliding slowly,
And broke the breathless silence, speaking lowly,
As one grown meek, and humble in an hour,
Bowing before some new and mighty power.
“Maurine, Maurine!” ”

“ If but his name was uttered. You were kind,
My own Maurine! as you alone could be,
So long the sharer of my heart and mind,
While yet you saw, in seeming not to see.
In all the years we have been friends, my own,
And loved as women very rarely do,
My heart no sorrow and no joy has known
It has not shared at once, in full, with you.
And I so longed to speak to you of this,
When first I felt its mingled pain and bliss;
Yet dared not, lest you, knowing him, should say,
In pity for my folly—‘Lack-a-day! ”

“ When the flowers are beginning to open afresh, and the beautiful roses for which this land has so long been famous commence to re-expand, then the summer is approaching, and a fête is held in honour of the goddess Morinka. The morinka is a gigantic flower which, growing from the bottom of the lake, expands the petals of its flower on the surface. So huge is it that one single petal would suffice for the cradle of a child, while a single flower will perfume the entire neighbourhood far and wide. ”