I assure you it is very amusing to see a herd of twenty or thirty chamois cross at a headlong pace a vast field of snow, or glacier, where they bound over the crevasses in play.
The ice was excessively fissured; we crossed crevasses and crept round slippery ridges, cutting steps in the ice wherever climbing was necessary.
Should we still find an impassable system of crevasses above us, or were we close to the top?
Illustration: Crevasses in Cowlitz Glacier, with waterfall dropping from Cowlitz Park, over basaltic cliffs.
It would be impossible to return and cross the crevasses before dark.
Unless one has intimate acquaintance with the ways of the great ice peaks, he should never attack such a wilderness of crevasses and shifting snow-slopes save in company of those who know its fickle trails.
The picture also illustrates how the marginalcrevasses of a glacier point down stream from the center, though the center flows faster than the sides.
At last, in its old age, when far down its canyon, the glacier is completely hidden, save where crevasses reveal the ice.
Great Crevasses in the upper part of Cowlitz Glacier.
Great crevasses in upper part of Cowlitz Glacier Kiser Photo Co.
Ice, unlike water, is brittle, so it splits up into crevasses whenever the glacier flows over a steep or uneven rocky bed.
Nearer, and apparently almost immediately below us, lay the Wengern Alp, and the little inn we had left twelve hours before, whilst we could just see the back of the labyrinth of crevasses where we had wandered so long.
With indescribable labour, and at imminent peril of rolling as shapeless corpses into the crevasses of the glacier below, the travellers at length set foot upon the ice.
We were soon safe upon a fine open plateau of the neve, where we threaded our way among a few snow crevasses requiring caution, and then prepared for a comfortable halt in an apparently safe place.
Many a time I complained to the guide that he took my boy over wide parts of the crevasses because he would not trouble himself to diverge from his path, and many a time did I compel him to turn aside to a narrower chasm.
Some of the deep crevasses apparently stretched almost from side to side of the glacier, rending its whole mass into distorted fragments.
SERAC A cube of ice, formed by intersecting crevasses where a glacier is very steep.
The Chamouni men proposed a direct assault on the network of crevasses above us.
Here crevasses began to open in all directions--real ones, yawning black in the glistening surface.
Our hunters fled for their lives, and barely gained the shelter of a giant boulder, when the skirts of the hideous torrent roared past leaped over an ice-cliff, and was swallowed up by the insatiable crevasses of the glacier below.
At one of these crevasses they were brought to a complete standstill.
Coming to one of thecrevasses which was too wide to leap, the ladder was put in requisition.
The ice became more broken up, smaller crevasses intersected the large one, and at last a place was reached where the chaos of dislocation rendered further advance impossible.
Once he got involved in a succession of crevasses which ran into each other, so that he found himself at last walking on the edge of a wedge of ice not a foot broad, with unfathomable abysses on either side.
You see the sun glinting dazzlingly on its eternal snows; you see the great rents and crevasses seaming its sides; you see where the cloud-bank blots out and shrouds its vast shoulders and flanks.
The surface, except where here and there blue crevasses yawned in the ice, was white with snow and the porous melting crust.
A series of marginal crevasses are still partly covered with snow.
There are many dangerous crevasses concealed under the snow which may be avoided by keeping to the rubbish heaps of the medial moraines.
That seemed to leave ample margin; but do not trust guide-books in a season of drought when the crevasses are open.
But this year the long drought had left open all the yawning crevasses with which it is seamed, and its perils were infinitely increased.
These crevasses are developed at right angles to the strain and often produce intersecting fissures in several directions.
Many blocks of stone fall into the gaping crevasses and much loose rock is carried down as "englacial material" in the body of the glacier.
Our route led us in a right line to one of the crevasses which opened at the base of the escarpment.
Besides, several crevasseswhich we had not perceived yawned at its base.
This plateau must be crossed with great caution, as the crevasses are often hidden by the snow; besides, it is often swept by avalanches.
The guides declared the first route impracticable, on account of the recent crevasses which entirely obstructed it; the choice between the two others remained.
This glacier, difficult at first, presents yawning and apparently bottomless crevasses on every hand.
The term is applied to the last of the crevasses one finds, in ascending, before quitting the glacier and taking to the rocks which bound it.
Crevasses that are bridged by snow are almost always more or less perceptible by undulations on the surface: the snow droops down, and hollows mark the course of the chasms beneath.
The glacier rises in gentle undulations, its crevasses are small and easily avoided, and all you have to do, after once getting upon the ice, is to proceed due south in the most direct manner possible.
Croz went to the front, and led with admirable skill through a maze of crevasses up to the foot of a great snow-couloir that rose from the head of the glacier to the summit of the ridge over which we had to pass.
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.
It is at least a hundred meters deep, and one can look down into vivid blue crevasses and hear the rushing of the ever-wearing waters far below.
Year after year appear the great crevasses where the glacier tumbles over a precipice and becomes a cataract of ice, yet remains the same.
They had a terrible time among the crevasses but reached Courmayeur at ten p.
It was also quite even on the top, and nocrevasses were to be seen.
Living, as they do, close to the ground, the insects often come across gold and other pieces of money which have been lost by men and have fallen into cracks or crevasses or become covered with earth or hidden by grass or weeds.
He sharpened his claws in the small crevasses of the ice.
Thus brought to a stand, I fixed a stake at the point where we were forced to halt, and retreated along edges of detestable granular ice, which fell in showers into the crevasses when struck by the axe.
Lower down the crevasses closed, and the snow thus jammed between their walls was converted into white ice.
The crevasses are produced by the mechanical strains to which the glacier is subjected.
With regard to the mechanical origin of the crevasses the most vague and untenable notions had been entertained until Mr. Hopkins published his extremely valuable papers.
I followed these new bands to their origin, and found it to be a system of crevasses formed at the summit of the hill, some of which were filled with snow.
Crevasses always commence in this way as mere narrow cracks, which open very slowly afterwards.
The ice was excessively fissured: we crossed crevasses and crept round slippery ridges, cutting steps in the ice wherever climbing was necessary.
The crevasses are sometimes very deep and numerous, and apparently without law or order in their distribution.
We turned to the left, and marched along its edge in search of a pont; but matters became gradually worse: other crevasses joined on to the first one, and the further we proceeded the more riven and dislocated the ice became.
This snow-slope is much dislocated at its lower portion, and above its precipices and crevasses our route now lay.
Another effect is here beautifully shown, namely, the union of the transverse and marginal crevasses to form continuous fissures which stretch quite across the glacier.
However we went well around and I set up my canvas and painted while Rockwell crawled about in caves and crevasses playing some sort of wild beast.
I stopped writing, for the fire had almost gone out and the cold wind blew in from two dozen great crevasses in the walls.
We had not reached the open crevasses when Francois, who was leading, suddenly disappeared like a sprite in a pantomime.
The ice was at first much fissured, but by bearing towards the rocks on the right we found a slope clear from crevasses and favourable to a long glissade.
The crevasses were frequent, but generally small,--the right size for jumping over.
Between them lay a natural pass, approached on this side by a long bank of snow, between which and us the crevasses were evidently easy of circumvention.
He began the ascent with two companions, but one of them became afraid of the crevasses in the glaciers and returned to the base camp.
The conclusion arrived at was that Verhoeff had fallen into one of the innumerable crevasses of the glacier and had there perished.
In order to avoid crevassesand glacier basins, Peary returned on a course well to the east of his upward one.
Some miles beyond these large crevasses a great number of small ones were met, into which both Peary and Henson frequently fell, but were always able to save themselves.
They found considerable difficulty on many occasions in extricating themselves and the dogs from the crevasses in the glaciers, but the journey was completed without serious accident.
On the following day we were up at six and marched a good 15 miles south with no opposition from crevasses or pressure ridges.
Next day we were away early, marching 8 1/2 miles to lunch camp, and getting amongst crevasses as big as Regent Street, all snow bridged.
On Christmas Eve we were 8000 feet above the Barrier, and we imagined we were clear of crevasses and pressure ridges.
Several of us dropped a leg down crevasseshere and there, nothing alarming.
The clouding of our goggles made thecrevasses more difficult to spot, and one or other of the party got legs or feet down pretty often.
For hours we fought on, sometimes overcoming crevasses by bridging them with the sledge where its length enabled this to be done.
They had great trouble in making this descent, on account of crevasses in the ice slopes which overhung the level way under the rock cliffs.
The Cape Crozier beach would probably mean a shorter journey to the Pole, for we should be spared the crevasses which radiated from White Island and necessitated a big detour being made to avoid them.
There are no planks laid across crevasses or ropes fixed in steep places up the mountains--everything is entirely unspoiled, and the mountains stand as they have done through the centuries before any white man set foot in New Zealand.
So early in the season the glacier is covered with last winter's snow, only here and there are there crevasses wide and deep enough to show the beautiful green ice tints.
North and south, east and west, along the crevasses the lake smoked in the morning sun, as the vapor from the water beneath rose into the icy air.
The cracks and crevasses were no longer steaming; instead, a thin shell of ice was coating over the open surfaces.
The bottom of each appeared smooth and apparently of firm snow, so that they were not in reality very dangerous obstacles, as compared with the narrow and wellnigh unfathomable crevasses of an ordinary glacier.
A number of great schrunds or horizontal crevasses often found on such slopes appeared to block our way, but as we approached we found a passage round every one.
The dark-blue roofs of thesecrevasses were hung with dripping icicles, while from far below could be heard the sound of rushing, sub-glacial streams.
Huge overhanging cliffs are to them steps within the reach of human legs; yawning crevasses are ditches to be jumped; and foaming waterfalls are like streams from penny squirts.
Then there were some big crevasses in the glacier and I had a half-drunk man to help across; I really didn't know he would drink too much when I gave him the flask.
Lawrence was not well yet, but she had seen him climb among the crevasses and knew his steadiness.
We could see depressions in the surface where the huge crevasses had formerly existed, but now they were entirely filled up, and formed one with the surrounding level.
I believe that we were then already above land; the large crevasses that we had avoided down below probably formed the boundary.
There were no new crevasses to be seen; those that there were, were large and wide, but their edges were rounded off everywhere, and the crevasses themselves were almost entirely filled with snow.
One can then judge by the appearance of the surface whether there is danger ahead; and if crevasses are seen in time, there is always a suitable crossing to be found.
But here the side of the mountain was fairly steep, and full of big crevasses and a fearful quantity of gigantic blocks of ice.
Our course along this natural line was not entirely free from obstruction; crevasses of various dimensions constantly crossed our path.
Wisting came near to sounding the depth of one of these dangerous crevasses with sledge, dogs and all, as the bridge he was about to cross gave way.
We set our course along the white line that we had been able to follow among the numerous crevasses right up to the first terrace.
We were now in exactly the same kind of place as before; crevasses ran in every direction, like a broken pane of glass.
We could see that the big crevasseslost themselves in it, and the question of what the glacier looked like on the west had to be put aside for the moment.
We could see in the distance some huge dome-shaped formations, that seemed to tower high into the air: these turned out to be the southernmost limit of the big crevasses and to form the transition to the third phase of the glacier.
The surface against the land is violently disturbed -- crevasses and pressure ridges, waves and valleys, in all directions.
Here the big crevasses were entirely filled with snow and might be crossed anywhere.
We had one more contact with the broken ground, having to cross some crevasses and pass a big hole; but then it was done, and we could once more rejoice in having solid ice beneath us.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "crevasses" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
