The Märjalen See

Abstract

LAKELETS, in which the ice-crags of a glacier are mirrored, in which miniature bergs may be seen to float, are of occasional, though of rare, occurrence in the Alps—as for example the Lac de Ste. Marguerite, at the foot of the Ruitor glacier; but the Marjalen See, so far as I know, is unique, of its kind. It is not formed at the foot of a glacier, either by partial occupation of a shallow basin worn by the ice-stream in its days of greater strength, or by the pounding back of the glacier torrent by an old terminal moraine; but it is on one side of a glacier, which makes a dam across an upland glen. This barrier at times yields to the pressure of the accumulated water sufficiently to allow of its escape beneath the great ice-stream, and it is a recent incident of the kind, noticed in the Times of September 30, which has suggested the present article.