France is a large nation with many kinds of country and people in its borders. Its western borders are washed by the Atlantic. Its southwestern boundary is the Pyrenees (pr´ -nz) mountains. Its fair fields of the south slope toward the sunny Mediterranean (md´ -tr-´-n-n). In the north it looks over Belgium and the uplands of the Rhine. On the east it rises ruggedly into the tall peaks of the Alps. It is a land of over 200,000 square miles and 40,000,000 people. It would make 5 states the size of Ohio, with 9 times as many inhabitants as Ohio has. Some of these are the gay Parisians, others the slow-moving fishermen of the coast, and still others the active mountaineers of the Alps section. It is here you see a section of France that tourists love even beyond Paris. This is the valley of the Chamonix (shå´ m´ n´). The valley is only 12 miles long and a half mile wide, but it has some of the finest scenery of Europe. It is bordered on the southeast by the Mont Blanc chain of Alps, and Mont Blanc is the highest of all Alpine peaks. It rises 15,782 feet above sea level. The glacier you are looking at is the snow and ice from the peak of Mont Blanc ("white or snow mountain".) There are 19 other glaciers that are fed by the Mont Blanc snows. On the left hand you see a peak called Aiguille du Mid, which means the Central Peak. Glaciers are formed by layers of snow and ice and are years and years in the making. Heavy snows fall on Mont Blanc in the winter. They thaw in the summer, freeze and thaw again, till a sheet of great thickness and weight is formed. Finally the weight is so heavy that the pressure forces the ice sheet slowly downward. Keystone ID: 10732 Note: All titles, descriptions, and location coordinates are from the original Keystone Slide documentation as supplied by the Keystone View Company. No text has been edited or changed.