Word Finder - glens

definition

A secluded and narrow valley, especially one with a river running through it; a dale; a depression between hills.

The glens are more numerous there and on the whole deeper and narrower.

It is situated on a long, narrow tongue of rock at the junction of two deep glens.

The Waldensian valleys lie to the south-west of Turin, in the direction of Monte Viso, but include no high or snowy mountains, while the glens themselves are (with one or two exceptions) fertile and well wooded.

Just to its south-west there opens the chief Waldensian valley, the Val Pellice, watered by the stream of that name, but sometimes called inaccurately the Luserna valley, Luserna being simply _a village opposite the capital, Torre Pellice; near Torre Pellice the side glens of Angrogna and Rora join the Pellice valley.

From an extensive deposit of blue-black magnesian limestone at Glens Falls are taken the choicest varieties of black marble quarried in the United States.

Glens Falls is served by the Delaware & Hudson and the Hudson Valley (electric) railways.

An iron bridge crosses the river just below the falls, connecting Glens Falls and South Glens Falls (pop. in 1905, 2097).

In the neighbourhood of Glens Falls are valuable quarries of black marble and limestone, and lime, plaster and Portland cement works.

Glens Falls was settled about the close of the French and Indian War (1763), and was incorporated as a village in 1839.

Altogether this western extremity of the Kuen-lun system is a very rugged mountainous region, a consequence partly of the intricacy of the flanking ranges and spurs, partly of the powerful lateral compression to which they have been subjected, and partly of the great and abrupt differences in vertical elevation between the crests of the ranges and the bottoms of the deep, narrow, rugged glens between them.

Hard rock (mostly granite and crystalline schists, with red sandstone in places) appears only in the transverse glens, which are often choked with their debris in the form either of gravel-and-shingle or loose blocks of stone or both.

The glens of Antrim are deep notches cut by seaward-running streams through the basalt scarp, their floors being formed of Triassic or older rocks.

The whole White Mountain region abounds in deep narrow valleys, romantic glens, ravines, flumes, waterfalls, brooks and lakes.

The relief is strong enough to make occupation difficult; the slopes are forested; the uplands are cleared and well occupied b farms and villages, but many of the valleys are wooded glens.

The Cleveland hills rise sharply southward, to elevations sometimes exceeding 1000 ft., and are scored with deep and picturesque glens.

The fertile glens of the Alcaraz district are richly wooded, and often, from their multitude of fruit trees, resemble the huertas or gardens of Alicante; but broad tracts of land are destitute of trees, and suitable only for pasture.

The mountain chains which enclose Kagan sweep southward into the broader portion of the district, throwing off well-wooded spurs which break up the country into numerous isolated glens.

Its western slopes, where it abuts on the mountain masses which dominate the Kabul plain, are forest-covered and picturesque, with deep glens intersecting them, and bold craggy ridges; the same may be said of the northern spurs which reach downward through the Shinwari country towards Gandamak and Jalalabad.

The gain of the Milanese in 18J9 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the nonItalian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting.

In the neighbourhood are the Cave of the Winds, the Grand Caverns, charming glens, mountain lakes and picturesque canyons; and the Garden of the Gods, - approached by a narrow gateway between two tremendous masses of red rock 330 ft.

Although the plains are for the most part arid wastes, sugar, aloes, tobacco and divi-divi are produced with much toil in the more fertile glens.

Grand rugged cliffs line the coast; while, inland, the country is celebrated for the rich colouring of its woods and glens.

Most of the straths and glens have a floor of detritus which, spread out between the bases of the boundary hills, has been levelled into meadow land by the rivers and provides almost the sole arable ground in each district.

Most of the Highland valleys are true glens, Glencoe being the best-known example.

Their sides are seamed with torrents which tear down the solid rock and sweep its detritus into the glens and sea lochs.

Where two glens begin opposite to each other on the same ridge, their corries are gradually cut back until only a sharp crest separates them.

This crest, attacked on each front and along the summit, is lowered with comparative rapidity, until merely a low col or pass may separate the heads of the two glens.

Glen lakes are those which occupy portions of glens.

Much discussion has arisen as to their mode of origin, but it is probable they were caused by the erosive action of ice, since glaciers occupied the glens where they occur and wore down the rocks along the sides and bottom; but it is a point of difficulty in this theory whether ice could have eroded the deepest of the hollows.

Many of them are prolonged under the sea; in other words, the narrow deep fjords are seaward continuations of the glens.

If they could be raised out of the sea they would become glens, with lakes filling their deeper portions.

They returned to glens desolate of men, deserted, first, by the voluntary emigrations of the clans, and later by forced emigrations in the interests of sheep farms and deer forests.

This range encloses many charming valleys and glens; the most prominent feature of its scenery is formed by the forests, chiefly of pines and firs.

Owing to the mountainous character of the island, glens are numerous.

In the first place it was impossible to support the defence by direct flanking fire against attacking troops; in the second place, there was little depth in the lines traced on the Zagradan-Jeza ridge, which fell rapidly to the head of the Judrio valley and the glens which carry the minor streams between the Judrio and the Natisone.

Between the main range and the sea there intervene at least two parallel ranges separated by deep glens, and behind it a third subsidiary parallel range, likewise separated by a deep trough-like valley, and known as the Bokovoi Khrebet.

All these ranges are shorn through transversely by numerous glens and gorges, and, the rainfall being heavy and the exposure favourable, they are densely clothed with vegetation.

These two ranges are connected by more than half a dozen short transverse spurs or necks, inclosing as many cirques or high cauldron glens.

Besides the Bokovoi Khrebet several other short subsidiary ranges branch off from the main range at acute angles, lifting up high montane glens between them; for instance, the two ranges in Svanetia, which divide, the one the river (glen) Ingur from the river (glen) Tskhenis-Tskhali, and the other the river (glen) TskhenisTskhali from the rivers (glens) Lechkhum and Racha.Down all these glens glacier streams descend, until they find an opportunity to pierce through the flanking ranges, which they do in deep and picturesque gorges, and then race down the northern slopes of the mountains to enter the Terek or the Kuban, or down the southern versant to join the Rion or the Kura.

Amongst all these high glens there is a remarkable absence of lakes and waterfalls; nor are there down in the lower valleys at the foot of the mountains, as one would naturally expect in a region so extensively glaciated, any sheets of water corresponding to the Swiss lakes.

The rest of the Daghestan region consists of a series of roughly parallel folds, of Jurassic or Cretaceous age, ranging in altitudes from 7500 up to 12,500 ft., separated from one another by deep gorge-like river glens which cut it up into a number of arid, treeless plateaus which have something of the appearance of independent ranges, or rather elongated tablelands of a mountainous character.

The glens and ravines on the hillside are often thickly wooded, and offer a delightful contrast to the open downs.

The vale would doubtless rank only as one among the many beautiful glens of the district, but that it has obtained a lasting celebrity through one of the Irish Melodies of the poet Thomas Moore, in which its praises are sung.

Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words, quagmires and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, soft vales, sunny pastures, a gloomy castle, of which the courtyard was strewn with the skulls and bones of murdered prisoners, a town all bustle and splendour, like London on the Lord Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a rule could make it, running on up hill and down hill, through city and through wilderness, to the Black River and the Shining Gate.

On the southern it mostly consists of lofty, bleak moorland, affording subsistence for sheep and cattle, and rugged glens and ravines, while on the northern there are many stretches of fertile soil, especially in the valleys and dales, and the landscape is often romantic and beautiful.

The fjords and glens which cut into it are shut in by precipitous walls of basalt, which plainly shows that they have been formed by erosion through the mass of the plateau.

Numerous valleys or glens penetrate into the tableland, especially on the north and east, and between them long mountain spurs, sections of the tableland which have resisted the action of erosion, thrust themselves towards the sea.

Save the lower parts of the larger glens, there are no lowlands on the north and east.

Several dales or glens penetrate the central tableland; the eastern part of this lowland is called BorgarfjorNr, the western part Myrar.

It first winds in deep, narrow glens and gorges through the Alps, and at Tblz (2looft.), due north from its source, enters the Bavarian plain, which it traverses in a generally north and north-east direction, and pours its waters into the Danube immediately below Deggendorf after a course of 210 m.