MRKELEY USRARY EARTH THE "GLACIERS UP.T vr: V ,A Jl NARRATIVE OP EXCURSIONS AND 'ASCENTS, A THE ORIGIN AND PHENOMENA OF GLACIERS, AX EXPOSITION OF THE PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES TO WHICH THEY ARE RELATED. BY JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S., MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETIES OF SCIENCE OF HOLLAND AND GOTTINGEN ; Oi THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF HALLE, MARBURG, AND ZURICH ; OF THE SOCIETK PHILOMATIQUE OF PARIS j OF THE NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSICAL SOCIETY OF GENEVA ; OF THE PHYSICAL SOCIETY OF BERLIN ; PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, AND IN THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES. JUUstratfons. BOSTON: TICK NOR AND FIELDS M DCCC LXI. EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY AUTHOR'S EDITION <"") University Press, Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. TO M I CHAEL F AK AD A Y, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 1860. PREFACE. IN the following work I have not attempted to mix Narrative and Science, believing that the mind once interested in the one, cannot with satisfaction pass ab- ruptly to the other. The book is therefore divided into Two Parts : the first chiefly narrative, and the second chiefly scientific. In Part I. I have sought to convey some notion of the life of an Alpine explorer, and of the means by which his knowledge is acquired. In Part II. an at- tempt is made to classify such knowledge, and to refer the observed phenomena to their physical causes. The Second Part of the work is written with a desire to interest intelligent persons who may not possess any special scientific culture. For their sakes I have dwelt more fully on principles than I should have done in presence of a purely scientific audience. The brief sketch of the nature of Light and Heat, with which Part II. is commenced, will not, I trust, prove unin- teresting to the reader for whom it is more especially designed. VI PKEFACE. Should any obscurity exist as to the meaning of the terms Structure, Dirt-bands, Regelation, Interference, and others which occur in Part I., it will entirely dis- appear in the perusal of Part II. Two ascents of Mont Blanc and two of Monte Rosa are recorded ; but the aspects of nature, and other circumstances which attracted my attention, were so different in the respective cases, that repetition was scarcely possible. The numerous interesting articles on glaciers which have been published during the last eighteen months, and the various lively discussions to which the subject has given birth, have induced me to make myself better acquainted than I had previously been with the historic aspect of the question. In some important cases I have stated, with the utmost possible brevity, the results of my reading, and thus, I trust, contributed to the for- mation of a just estimate of men whose labours in this field were long anterior to my own. J. T. Royal Institution, June, 1860. CONTENTS. PART I. 1. INTRODUCTORY. PAGE Visit to Penrhyn ; the Cleavage of Slate Rocks ; Sedgwick's Theory its Difficulties; Sharpe's Observations; Sorby's Experiments; Lec- ture at the Royal Institution ; Glacier Lamination ; Arrangement of an Expedition to Switzerland 1 2. EXPEDITION OF 1856: THE OBERLAND. Valley of Lauterbrunnen ; Pliability of Rocks ; the Wengern Alp ; the Jungfrau and Silberhorn; Ice Avalanches; Glaciers formed from them ; Scene from the Little Scheideck ; the Lower Grindelwald Gla- cier ; the Heisse Platte its Avalanches ; Ice Minarets and Blocks ; Echos of the Wetterhorn ; Analogy with the Reflection of Light from Angular Mirrors ; the Reichenbach> Cascade ; Handeck Fall ; the Grimsel ; the Unteraar Glacier ; Hut of M. Dolfuss ; Hotel des Neuf- chatelois ; the Rhone Glacier from the Mayenwand ; Expedition up the Glacier; Coloured Rings round the Sun; Crevasses of the Ne'vtf ; Extraordinary Meteorological Phenomenon ; Spirit of the Brocken . 9 3. THE TYROL. Kaunserthal and the Gebatsch Alp ; Senner or Cheesemakers ; Gebatsch Glacier ; a Night in a Cow-shed ; Passage to Lantaufer ; a Chamois on the Rocks ; my Guide ; the Atmospheric Snow-line ; Passage of the Stelvio ; Colour of fresh Snow ; Bormio ; the Pass recrossed by Night; Aspect of the Mountains; Meran toUnserfrau; Passage of the Hochjoch to Fend ; Singular Hailstorm ; Wild Glacier Region ; Hidden Crevasses ; First Paper presented to the Royal Society . 23 4. EXPEDITION OF 1857: THE LAKE OF GENEVA. Blueness of the Water; the Head of the Lake; Appearance of the Rhone ; Subsidence of Particles ; Mirage 33 viii CONTENTS. 5. CHAMOUNI AND THE MONTANVERT. Arrival; Coloured Shadows on the Snow ; Source of the Arveiron ; Fall of the Vault ; " Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni ; " Scratched Rocks; Quarters at the Montanvert 37 6. THE MER DE GLACE. Not a Sea but a River of Ice ; Wave-forms on its Surface ; their Expla- nation ; Structure and Strata ; Glacier Tables ; First View of the Dirt Bands ; Influence of Illumination in rendering them visible ; the Eye incapable of detecting Differences between intense Lights . .42 7. Measurements commenced; the "Cleft Station" at Trelaporte ; Rege- lation of Snow Granules ; two Chamois ; View of the Mer de Glace and its Tributaries ; Se'racs of the Col du Geant ; Sliding and Viscous Theories; Rending of the Ice ; Striae on its Surface ; White Ice-seams 46 8. Alone upon the Glacier ; Lakes and Rivulets ; Parallel between Glacier and Geological Disturbance ; Splendid Rainbow ; Aspect of the Gla- cier at the Base of the Seracs ; Visit to the Chief Guide at Chamou- ni; Liberties granted .57 9. THE* JARDIN. Glacier du Talefre ; Jardin divides the Neve ; Blue Veins near the Sum- mit ; Surrounding Scene ; Moraines and Avalanches ; Cascade du Talefre ; Dangers on approaching it from above . . . .61 10. Lightning and Rain ; Spherical Hailstones ; an Evening among the Cre- vasses ; Dangerous Leap ; Ice-Practice ; Preparations for an Ascent of Mont Blanc 64 11. FIRST ASCENT OF MONT BLANC, 1857. Across the Mountain to the Glacier des Bossons ; its Crevasses ; Ladder left behind ; Consequent Difficulties ; the Grands Mulcts ; Twinkling and Change of Colour of the Stars ; Moonlight on the Mountains ; start with one Guide ; Difficulties among the Crevasses ; the Petit Plateau ; Seracs of the Dome du Goute ; Bad Condition of Snow ; the Grand Plateau ; Coloured Spectra round the Sun ; the lost Guides ; the Route CONTENTS. ix missed ; Dangerous Ice-Slope ; Guide exhausted ; Cutting Steps ; Cheerless Prospect ; the Corridor ; the Mur de la Cote ; the Petits Mu- lcts ; Food and Drink disappear ; Physiological Experiences on the Calotte ; Summit attained ; the Clouds and Mountains ; Experiment on Sound ; Colour of the Snow ; the Descent ; a solitary Prisoner ; Second Night at the Grands Mulets ; Inflammation of Eyes ; a Blind Man among the Crevasses ; Descent to Chamouni ; Thunder on Mont Blanc 68 12. Life at the Montanvert ; Glacier " Blower ; " Cascade of the Talefre ; Difficulties in setting out Lines ; Departure from the Montanvert ; my Hosts ; Prospect from the Glacier des Bois ; Edouard Simond . 86 13. EXPEDITION OF 1858. Origin and Aim of the Expedition; Laminated Structure of the Ice . 92 14. PASSAGE OF THE STRAHLECK. Unpromising Weather ; Appearance of the Glacier and of the adja- cent Mountains ; Transverse Protuberances ; Dirt Bands ; Structure ; a Slip on a Snow Slope ; the Finsteraarhorn; the Schreckhorn ; Ex- traordinary Atmospheric Effects ; Summit of the Strahleck ; Grand Amphitheatre ; Mutations of the Clouds ; Descent of the Rocks ; a Bergschrund ; Fog in the Valley ; Descent to the Grimsel . . 93 15. Ancient Glaciers in the Valley of Hasli; Rounded, Polished, and Stri- ated Rocks ; Level of the Ancient Ice ; Groovings on the Grimsel Pass ; Glacier of the Rhone ; Descent of the Rhone Valley ; the JEg- -gischhorn; Cloud Iridescences; the Aletsch Glacier; the Margelin See ; Icebergs ; Tributaries of the Aletsch ; Grand Glacier-region ; Crevasses ; a Chamois deceived 99 16. ASCENT OF THE FINSTERAARHORN. Character of my Guide ; Iridescent Cloud ; Evening on the Faulberg ; the Jungfrau and her Neighbours ; a Mountain Gave ; the Jungfrau before Dawn ; Contemplated Visit ; the Griinhorn Liicke ; Magnifi- cent Corridor ; Sunrise ; Ne've' of the Viesch Glacier ; Halt at the Base of the Finsteraarhorn ; Spurs and Couloirs of the Mountain ; Pyramidal Crest; Scene of Agassiz's Observations; a Hard Climb; X CONTENTS. Discipline of such an Ascent ; Boiling Point ; Registering Thermom- eter, its Fate ; Daring Utterance ; Descent by Glissades ; the Viesch Glacier ; Hidden Crevasses ; a Brave and Competent Guide . .104 17. Subsequent Days at the JEggischhorn ; Afloat on the Icebergs ; Bed- ding and Structure ; Ancient Moraines of the Aletsch ; Scratched Rocks ; Passage of the Mountains to the end of the Glacier ; a wild Gorge ; Arrival at Zermatt ; the Riffelberg ..... 119 18. FIRST ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA, 1858. The Ascent new to myself and my Guide ; Directions ; Ulrich Laue- ner ; Ominous Clouds ; Passage of the Gorner Glacier ; Roches Mou- tonnees ; Avalanche from the Twins ; Gradual Advance of Clouds ; Bridged Chasms ; Scene from a Cliff; Apparent Atmospheric Strug- gle ; Sound of the Snow ; Dangerous Edge ; Overhanging Cornice ; Staff driven through it; Increased Obscurity; Rocky Crest; Loss of Pocketbook ; Summit attained ; Boiling Point ; Fall of Snow ; Exquisite Forms of the Snow Crystals ; a Shower of Frozen Blos- soms ; the Descent ; Mode of Attachment ; Startling Avalanche ; Blue Light emitted from the Fissures of the fresh Snow ; Stifling Heat ; Return to the Riffel ........ 122 The Rothe Kumm ; Pleasant Companions ; Difficult Descent ; Tem- peratures of Rock, Air, and Grass ; Singular Cavern in the Ice ; Structure and Stratification ...... . .133 20. THE GORNER GRAT AND THE RIFFELHORN. MAGNETIC PHENOMENA. Formation and Dissipation of Clouds ; Scene from the Gorner Grat ; Magnetism of the Rocks ; the Compass and Sun at Variance ; As- cent of the Riffelhorn ; Magnetic Effects ; Places of most intense Action ; Scratched and Polished Rocks ; Exfoliation of Crust pro- duced by the Sliding of Ancient Glaciers ; Magnetic Polarity ; Con- sequent Points ; Bearings from the Riffelhorn ; Action on a distant Needle ............ 137 21. Fog on the Riffelberg ; its Dissipation ; Sunset from the Gorner Grat ; Cloud-wreaths on the Matterhorn ; Streamers of Flame ; Grand In- CONTENTS. xi terference Phenomenon ; Investigation of Structure ; the Gornerhorn Glacier ; Western Glacier of Monte Rosa ; the Schwartze, Trifti, and Theodule Glaciers ; Welding of the Tributaries to Parallel Strips ; Temptation 145 22. SECOND ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA, 1858. A Light Scrip ; my Guide lent ; a Substitute ; a Party on the Moun- tain ; across the Glacier and up the Rocks ; the Guide expostulates ; among the Crevasses ; the Guide halts ; left alone ; Beauty of the Mountain ; Splendid Effects of Diffraction ; Cheer from the Summit ; on the Kamm ; Climbers meet ; among the Rocks ; alone on the Summit ; the Axe slips ; the Prospect ; the Descent ; Serious Acci- dent; a Word on Climbing alone 151 23. The Furgge Glacier ; Thunder and Lightning ; the Weissthor given up ; Excursion by Stalden to Saas ; Herr Imseng ; the Mattmark See and Hotel ; Ascent of a Boulder ; Snow-storm ; Cold Quarters ; the Monte Moro ; the Allelein Glacier ; a Noble Vault ; Structure and Dirt-bands; Stormy Weather; Avalanches at Saas; the Fe'e Glacier ; Frozen Dust on the Mischabelhorner ; Snow, Vapour, and Cloud ; Curious Effect on the Hearing ; " a Terrible Hole ; " Singu- lar Group ; a Song from the " Robbers " 160 24. Need of Observations on Alpine Temperature ; Balmat's Intention ; Aid from the Royal Society ; Difficulties at Chamouni in 1858 ; the Intendant memorialized ; his Response ; the Se'racs revisited ; Cre- vasses and Crumples; Bad Weather; Thermometers placed at the Jardin ; Avalanches of the Talefre ; Wondrous Sky . . .168 25. SECOND ASCENT OF MONT BLANC, 1858. Shadows of the Aiguilles ; Silver Trees at Sunrise ; M. Necker's Let- ter ; Birds as Sparks and Stars against the Sky ; Crevasse bridged ; Ladder rejected ; a Hunt for a Pont ; Crevasses crossed ; Magnifi- cent Sunset ; Illuminated Clouds ; Storm on the Grands Mulcts ; a Comet discovered ; Start by Starlight; the Petit Plateau a Reservoir for Avalanches ; Balmat's Warning ; the Grand Plateau at Dawn ; Blue of the Ice ; Balmat in Danger ; Clouds upon the Calotte ; the Summit ; Wind and Snow-dust ; Balmat Frostbitten ; Halt on the Calotte; Descent to Chamouni ; Good Conduct of Porters . . 177 Xll CONTENTS. 26. Hostility of Chief Guide; Proces Verbal; the British Association; Application to the Sardinian Authorities ; President's Letter ; Royal Society; Testimonial to Balmat 192 27. WINTER EXPEDITION TO THE MER DE GLACE, 1859. First Defeat and fresh Attempt ; Geneva to Chamouni ; Deep Snow ; Desolation ; Slow Progress ; a Horse in the Snow ; a Struggle ; Cha- mouni on Christmas Night ; Mountains hidden ; Climb to the Mon- tanvert; Snow on the Pines; Debris of Avalanches ; Breaking of Snow; Atmospheric Changes; the Mountains concealed and re- vealed ; Colour of the Snow ; the Montanvert in Winter ; Footprints in the Snow; Wonderful Frost Figures ; Crystal Curtain ; the Mer de Glace in Winter ; the First Night ; " a Rose of Dawn ; " Crimson Banners of the Aiguilles ; the Stakes fixed ; a Hurricane on the Glacier ; the Second Night ; Wild Snow-storm ; a Man in a Crevasse ; Calm ; Magnificent Snow Crystals ; Sound through the falling Snow ; Swift Descent ; Source of the Arveiron ; Crystal Cave ; Appearance of Water ; Westward from the Vault ; Majestic Scene ; Farewell . 195 PART II. 1. LIGHT AND HEAT. What is Light? Notion of the Ancients; requires Time to pass through Space ; Romer, Bradley, Fizeau ; Emission Theory support- ed by Newton, opposed by Huyghens ; the Wave Theory established by Young and Fresnel ; Theory explained ; Nature of Sound ; of Music ; of Pitch ; Nature of Light ; of Colour ; two Sounds may pro- duce Silence ; two Rays of Light may produce Darkness ; two Rays of Heat may produce Cold ; Length and Number of Waves of Light ; Liquid Waves ; Interference ; Diffraction ; Colours of Thin Plates ; Applications of the foregoing to Cloud Iridescences, Luminous Trees, Twinkling of Stars, the Spirit of the Brocken, &c. . . . . 223 2. RADIANT HEAT. The Sun emits a Multitude of Non-luminous Rays ; Rays of Heat dif- fer from rays of Light as one Colour differs from another ; the same Ray may produce the Sensations of Light and Heat . . .239 CONTENTS. xiii 3. QUALITIES OF HEAT. Heat a Kind of Motion ; System of Exchanges ; Luminous and Obscure Heat ; Absorption by Gases ; Gases may be.transparent to Light, but opaque to Heat ; Heat selected from Luminous Sources ; the Atmos- phere acts the part of a Eatchet-wheel ; Possible Heat of a Distant Planet; Causes of Cold in the upper Strata of the Earth's Atmos- phere 241 4. ORIGIN or GLACIERS. Application of Principles ; the Snow-line ; its Meaning ; Waters piled annually in a solid Form on the Summits of the Hills ; the Glaciers furnish the chief Means of Escape ; Superior and Inferior Snow-line 248 5. Whiteness of Snow ; Whiteness of Ice ; Round Air-bubbles ; Melting and Freezing ; Conversion of Snow into Ice by Pressure . . 249 6. COLOUR OF WATER AND ICE. Waves of Ether not entangled ; they are separated in the Prism ; they are differently absorbed ; Colour due to this ; Water and Ice Blue ; Water and Ice opaque to Radiant Heat ; Long Waves shivered on the Molecules; Experiment; Grotto of Capri ; the Laugs of Iceland . 25.'] 7. COLOURS OF THE SKY. Newton's Idea ; Goethe's Theory ; Clausius and Briicke ; Suspended Particles ; Singular Effect on a Painting explained by Goethe ; Light separated without Absorption; Reflected and Transmitted Light; Blueness of Milk and Juices ; the Sun through London Smoke ; Ex- periments ; Blue of the Eye ; Colours of Steam ; the Lake of Ge- neva 257 8. THE MORAINES. Glacier loaded along its Edges by the Ruins of the Mountains ; Lateral Moraines ; Medial Moraines ; their Number one less than the Num- ber of Tributaries ; Moraines of the Mer de Glace ; Successive Shrink- ings ; Glacier Tables explained; "Dip" of Stones upon the Glacier enables us to draw the Meridian Line ; Type " Table ; " Sand Cones ; Morains engulfed and disgorged ; Transparency of Ice under the Moraines . 263 XIV CONTENTS. 9. GLACIER MOTION- PRELIMINARY. Neve and Glacier ; First Measurements ; Hugi and Agassiz ; Escher's Defeat on the Aletsch ; Piles fixed across the Aar Glacier by Agas- siz in 1841 ; Professor Forbes invited by M. Agassiz ; Forbes's First Observations on the Mer de Glace in 1842 ; Motion of Agassiz's Piles measured by M. Wild ; Centre of the Glacier moves quickest ; State of the Question 26S 10. MOTION OF THE MER DE GLACE. The Theodolite ; Mode of Measurement ; First Line; Centre Point not the quickest ; Second Line ; Former Result confirmed ; Law of Mo- tion sdught ; the Glacier moves through a Sinuous Valley ; Effect of Flexure; Western Half of Glacier moves quickest ; Point of Maxi- mum Motion crosses Axis ; Eastern Half moves quickest ; Locus of Point of Maximum Motion ; New Law ; Motion of the Geant ; Mo- tion of the Lechaud ; Squeezing of the Tributaries through the Neck of the Valley at Tre'laporte ; the Lechaud a Driblet . . . 27 11. ICE- WALL AT THE TACUL. VELOCITIES OF TOP AND BOTTOM. First Attempt by Mr. Hirst ; Second Attempt, Stakes fixed at Top, Bot- tom, and Centre ; Dense Fog ; the Stakes lost ; Process repeated ; Velocities determined 28? 12. WINTER MOTION OF THE MER DE GLACE. First Line, Above the Montanvert ; Second Line, Below the Montan- vert ; Ratio of Winter to Summer Motion 294 13. CAUSE OF GLACIER MOTION. DE SAUSSURE'S THEORY. First Attempt at a Theory by Scheuchzer in 1705 ; Charpentier's The- ory, or the Theory of Dilatation ; Agassiz's Theory ; Altmann and Griiner ; Theory of De Saussure, or the Sliding Theory ; in part true ; Strained interpretation of this Theory 29f 14. REXDU'S THEORY. Character of Rendu ; his Essay entitled " Theorie des Glaciers de la Savoie;" Extracts from the Essay; he ascribes "Circulation" to Natural Forces ; Classifies Glaciers ; Assigns the Cause of the Con- version of Snow into Ice ; Notices Veined Structure ; " Time and Affinity;" Notices Regelation; Diminution of Glaciers Reservoirs; CONTENTS. XV Remarkable Passage ; announces Swifter Motion of Centre ; North British Review ; Discrepancies explained by Rendu ; Liquid Motion ascribed to Glacier ; all the Phenomena of a River reproduced upon the Mer de Glace ; Ratio of Side and Central Velocities ; Errors removed 299 15. Anticipations of Rendu confirmed by Agassiz and Forbes ; Analogies with Liquid Motion established by Forbes ; his Measurements in 1842; Measurements in 1844 and 1846; Measurements of Agassiz and Wild in 1842, 1843, 1844, and 1845; Agassiz notices the "Mi- gration" of the Point of Swiftest Motion ; true Meaning of this Ob- servation ; Summary of Contributions on this Part of the Question 308 16. FORBES'S THEORY. Discussions as to its Meaning ; Facts and Principles ; Definition of The- ory ; some Experiments on the Mer de Glace to test the Viscosity of the Ice 311 17. THE CREVASSES. Caused by the Motion ; Ice Sculpture ; Fantastic Figures ; Beauty of tbe Crevasses of the Higher Glaciers ; Birth of a Crevasse ; Me- chanical Origin ; Line of greatest Strain ; Marginal Crevasses ; Transverse Crevasses ; Longitudinal Crevasses ; Bergschrunds ; In- fluence of Flexure ; why the Convex Sides of Glaciers are most crevassed 315 18. Further Considerations on Viscosity ; Numerical Test ; Formation of Crevasses opposed to Viscosity 325 19. HEAT AND WORK. Connexion of Natural Forces ; Equivalence of Heat and Work ; Heat produced by Mechanical Action ; Heat consumed in producing Work ; Chemical Attractions ; Attraction of Gravitation ; Amount of Heat which would be produced by the Stoppage of the Earth in its Orbit ; amount produced by the Falling of the Earth into the Sun ; Shifting of Atoms ; Heat consumed in Molecular Work ; Specific Heat j Latent Heat ; " Friability " of Ice near its Melting Point ; Rotten Ice and Softened Wax 328 b xvi CONTENTS. 20. Papers presented to the Royal Society by Professor Forbes in 1846 ; Capillary Hypothesis of Glacier Motion ; Hypothesis examined . 334 21. THOMSON'S THEORY. Statement of Theory ; Influence of Pressure on the Melting Point of Ice ; Difficulties of Theory ; Calculation of Requisite Pressure ; Actual Pressure Insufficient 340 22. PRESSURE THEORY. Pressure and Tension ; Possible Experiments ; Ice may be moulded into Vases and Statuettes, or coiled into Knots ; this no Proof of Viscosity; Actual Experiments; a Sphere of Ice moulded to a Lens ; a Lens moulded to a Cylinder ; a Lump of Ice moiilded to a Cup ; Straight Bars of Ice bent ; Ice thus moulded incapable of being sensibly stretched ; when Tension is substituted for Pressure, Analogy with Viscous Body breaks down 346 23. REGELATION. Faraday's first Experiments ; Freezing together of Pieces of Ice at 32 ; Freezing in Hot Water ; Faraday's recent Experiments ; Regelation not due to Pressure nor to Capillary Attraction ; it takes place in Vacuo; Fracture and Regelation ; no Viscidity discovered . . 351 24. CRYSTALLIZATION AND INTERNAL LIQUEFACTION. How Crystals are " nursed ; " Snow-Crystals ; Crystal Stars formed in Water ; Arrangement of Atoms of Lake Ice ; Dissection of Ice by a Sunbeam ; Liquid Flowers formed in Ice ; Associated Vacuous Spots ; Curious Sounds ; their Explanation ; Cohesion of Water when Free from Air ; Liquid snaps like a Broken Spring ; Ebulli- tion converted into Explosion ; Noise of Crepitation ; Water-cells in Glacier Ice ; Vacuous Spots mistaken for Bubbles ; not Flattened by Pressure ; Experiments ; Cause of Regelation .... 353 25. THE MOULINS. Their Character ; Depth of Moulin on Grindelwald Glacier ; Explana- tion ; the Grand Moulin of the Mer de Glace ; Motion of Moulins . 362 CONTENTS. XV11 26. DIRT-BANDS OF THE MER DE GLACE. Their .Discovery by Professor Forbes ; View of Bands from a Point near the Flegere ; Bands as seen from Les Charmoz ; Skew Surface of Glacier; Aspect of Bands from the Cleft Station; Origin of Bands ; Tendency to become Straight ; Differences between Ob- servers 367 27. VEINED STRUCTURE OF GLACIERS. General Appearance ; Grooves upon the Glacier ; First Observations ; Description by M. Guyot ; Observations of Professor Forbes ; Struc- ture and Stratification ; Subject examined ; Marginal Structure ; Transverse Structure ; Longitudinal Structure ; Experimental Illus- trations ; the Structure Complementary to the Crevasses ; Glaciers of the Oberland, Valais, and Savoy examined with reference to this Question 376 28. THE VEINED STRUCTURE AND DIFFERENTIAL MOTION. Marginal Structure Oblique to Sides ; Drag towards the Centre ; Diffi- culties of Theory which ascribes the Structure to Differential Sliding ; it persists across the Lines of Maximum Sliding .... 395 29. THE RIPPLE THEORY OF THE VEINED STRUCTURE. Ripples in Water supposed to correspond to Glacier Structure ; Ana- lysis of Theory ; Observation of the MM. Weber ; Water dropping from an Oar ; Stream cleft by an Obstacle ; Two Divergent Lines of Ripple ; Single Line produced by Lateral Obstacle ; Direction of Ripples compounded of River's Motion and Wave Motion ; Struc- ture and Ripples due to different Causes ; their Positions also dif- ferent 398 30. THE VEINED STRUCTURE AND PRESSURE. Supposed Case of Pressed Prism of Glass ; Experiments of Nature ; Quartz-Pebbles flattened and indented ; Pressure would produce Lamination; Tangential Action 404 31. THE VEINED STRUCTURE AND THE LIQUEFACTION OF ICE BY PRESSURE Influence of Pressure on Melting and Boiling Points ; some substances swell, others shrink in Melting; Effects of Pressure different on both Classes of Bodies ; Theoretic Anticipation by Mr. James Thom- son ; Melting Point of Ice lowered by Pressure ; Internal Liquefac- tion of a Prism of Solid Ice by Pressure ; Liquefaction in Layers ; Application to the Veined Structure 408 xviii CONTENTS. 32. WHITE ICE-SEAMS OF THE GLACIER DU GEANT. Aspect of Seams; they sweep across the Glacier concentric with Structure ; Structure at the Base of the Talefre Cascade ; Crumples ; " Scaling off by Pressure ; Origin of Seams of White Ice . . . 413 33. Glacier du Geant in a State of Longitudinal Compression ; Measure- ments which prove that its hinder Parts are advancing upon those in Front ; Shortening of its Undulations ; Squeezing of White Ice- Seams ; Development of Veined Structure .... 419 SUMMARY 422 APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . 427 INDEX . .443 ILLUSTRATIONS. THE MER DE GLACE. Showing the Cleft Station at Tr&aporte, the Echelets, the Tacul, the Pe'riades, and the Grande Jorasse . . Frontispiece. FIG. PAGE 1. Ice Minaret . 14 2. Diagram of an Angular Reflector 16 4* j Boats' Sails inverted by Atmospheric Refraction .... 35 5. Wave-like Forms on the Mer de Glace 43 6. Glacier Table 44 7. Tributaries of the Mer de Glace 53 8. Magnetic Boulder of the Riffelhorn .143 9.1 J' I Luminous Trees projected against the Sky at Sunrise . . 180, 181 12! J 13. Snow on the Pines 201 ' | Snow Crystals 214 16. Chasing produced by Waves 233 17. Diagram explanatory of Interference 234 19. Moraines of the Mer de Glace To face 264 20. Typical Section of a Glacier Table 266 21. Locus of the Point of Maximum Motion 286 22. Inclination of Ice Cascade of the Glacier des Bois .... 313 23. Inclinations of Mer de Glace above F Angle 314 24. Fantastic Mass of Ice 316 25. Diagram explanatory of the Mechanical Origin of Crevasses . . 318 XX ILLUSTRATIONS. WO. PAGE 26. Diagram showing the Line of Greatest Strain 319 27 B I Section and Plan of a Potion of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier . 322 28. Diagram illustrating the Crevassing of Convex Sides of Glaciers . 323 29. Diagram illustrating Test of Viscosity ....... 326 30.1 i I gM Moulds used in Experiments with Ice 346-348 33! j 34. Liquid Flowers in Lake Ice 355 35. Dirt-bands of the Mer de Glace, as seen from a Point near the Flegere To face 367 36. Ditto, as seen from Les Charmoz "368 37. Ditto, as seen from the Cleft Station, Tre'laporte ..." 369 38. Plan of Dirt-bands taken from Johnson's " Physical Atlas ". . . 374 39. Veined Structure on the Walls of Crevasses 381 40. Figure explanatory of the Marginal Structure 383 41. Plan of part of Icefall, and of Glacier below it (Glacier of the Rhone) 386 42. Section of ditto 386 43. Figure explanatory of Longitudinal Structure , 388 44. Structure and Bedding on the Great Aletsch Glacier . . . .391 *g' j Structure and Stratification on the Furgge Glacier . . . . 394 47. Diagram illustrating Differential Motion . . . . . .395 J Diagrams explanatory of the Formation of Eipples . . . 400, 403 {? J* j Appearance of a Prism of Ice partially liquefied by Pressure . . 410 j?g' j Figures illustrative of Compression and Liquefaction of Ice . . 411 jjg* j Sections of White Ice-seams 414 gj' j Variations in the Dip of the Veined Structure . . . 414, 415 58. Section of three Glacier Crumples 416 59. Wall of a Crevasse, with Incipient Crumpling 416 60. Plan of a Stream on the Glacier du Ge"ant 418 61. Plan of a Seam of White Ice on ditto 418 PART I. CHIEFLY NARRATIVE Ages are your days, Ye grand expressors of the present tense And types of permanence ; Firm ensigns of the fatal Being Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief That will not bide thee seeing. Hither we bring Our insect miseries to the rocks, And the whole flight with pestering wing Vanish and end their murmuring, Vanish beside these dedicated blocks. EMERSON. GLACIERS OF THE ALPS. INTRODUCTORY. IN the autumn of 1854 1 attended the meeting of the British Association at Liverpool ; and, after it was over. availed myself of my position to make an excursion into North Wales. Guided by a friend who knew the country, I became acquainted with its chief beauties, and concluded the expedition by a visit to Bangor and the neighbouring slate quarries of Penrhyn. From my boyhood I had been accustomed to handle slates ; had seen them used as roofing materials, and had worked the usual amount of arithmetic upon them at school ; but now, as I saw the rocks blasted, the broken masses removed to the sheds surrounding the quarry, and there cloven into thin plates, a new interest was excited, and I could not help asking after the cause of this extra- ordinary property of cleavage. It sufficed to strike the point of an iron instrument into the edge of a plate of rock to cause the mass to yield and open, as wood opens in advance of a wedge driven into it. I walked round the quarry and observed that the planes of cleavage were everywhere parallel ; the rock was capable of being split in one direction only, and this direction remained perfectly constant throughout the entire quarry. I was puzzled, and, on expressing my perplexity to my companion, he suggested that the cleavage was nothing 1 2 CLEAVAGE OF SLATE ROCKS. more than the layers in which the rock had been original- ly deposited, and which, hy some subsequent disturbance, had been set on end, like the strata of the sandstone rocks and chalk cliffs of Alum Bay. But though I was too igno- rant to combat this notion successfully, it by no means satisfied me. I did not know that at the time of my visit this very question of slaty cleavage was exciting the greatest attention among English geologists, and I quitted the place with that feeling of intellectual discontent which, however unpleasant it may be for a time, is very useful as a stimulant, and perhaps as necessary to the true appre- ciation of knowledge as a healthy appetite is to the enjoy- ment of food. On inquiry I found that the subject had been treated by three English writers, Professor Sedgwick, Mr. Daniel Sharpe, and Mr. Sorby. From Professor Sedgwick I learned that cleavage and stratification were things totally distinct from each other; that in many cases the strata could be observed with the cleavage passing through them at a high angle ; and that this was the case throughout vast areas in North Wales and Cumberland. I read the lucid and important memoir of this eminent geologist with great interest : it placed the data of the problem before me, as far as they were then known, and I found myself, to some extent at least, in a condition to appreciate the value of a theoretic explanation. Everybody has heard of the force of gravitation, and of that of cohesion ; but there is a more subtle play of forces exerted by the molecules of bodies upon each other when these molecules possess sufficient freedom of action. In virtue of such forces, the ultimate particles of matter are enabled to build themselves up into those wondrous edifices which we call crystals. A diamond is a crystal self-erected from atoms of carbon ; an amethyst is a crystal built up from particles of silica ; Iceland spar is a crystal built CRYSTALLIZATION THEORY. 3 by particles of carbonate of lime. By artificial means we- can allow the particles of bodies the free play necessary to their crystallization. Thus a solution of saltpetre exposed to slow evaporation produces crystals of saltpetre ; alum crystals of great size and beauty may be obtained in a similar manner ; and in the formation of a bit of common sugar-candy there are agencies at play, the contemplation of which, as mere objects of thought, is sufficient to make the wisest philosopher bow down in wonder, and confess himself a child. The particles of certain crystalline bodies are found to arrange themselves in layers, like courses of atomic ma- sonry, and along these layers such crystals may be easily cloven into the thinnest laminae. Some crystals possess one such direction in which they may be cloven, some several ; some, on the other hand, may be split with dif- ferent facility in different directions. Rock salt may be cloven with equal facility in three directions at right angles to each other ; that is, it may be split into cubes ; calcspar may be cloven in three directions oblique to each other ; that is, into rhomboids. Heavy spar may also be cloven in three directions, but one cleavage is much more perfect, or more eminent as it is sometimes called, than the rest. Mica is a crystal which cleaves very readily in one direc- tion, and it is sufficiently tough to furnish films of ex- treme tenuity : finally, any boy, with sufficient skill, who tries a good crystal of sugar-candy in various directions with the blade of his penknife, will find that it possesses one direction in particular, along which, if the blade of the knife be placed and struck, the crystal will split into plates possessing clean and shining surfaces of cleavage. Professor Sedgwick was intimately acquainted with all these facts, and a great many more, when he investigated the cleavage of slate rocks ; and seeing no other explana- tion open to him, he ascribed to slaty cleavage a crystal- 4 POLAR FORCES. line origin. He supposed that the particles of slate rock were acted on, after their deposition, by " polar forces," which so arranged them as to produce the cleavage. Ac- cording to this theory, therefore, Honister Crag and the cliffs of Penrhyn are to be regarded as portions of enor- mous crystals ; a length of time commensurate with the vastness of the supposed action being assumed to have elapsed between the deposition of the rock and its final crystallization. When, however, we look closely into this bold and beau- tiful hypothesis, we find that the only analogy which exists between the physical structure of slate rocks and of crys- tals is this single one of cleavage. Such a coincidence might fairly give rise to the conjecture that both were due to a common cause ; but there is great difficulty in accept- ing this as a theoretic truth. When we examine the structure of a slate rock, we find that the substance is com- posed of the debris of former rocks ; that it was once a fine mud, composed of particles of sensible magnitude. Is it meant that these particles, each taken as a whole, were re- arranged after deposition ? If so, the force which effected such an arrangement must be wholly different from that of crystallization, for the latter is essentially molecular. What is this force ? Nature, as far as we know, furnishes none competent, under the conditions, to produce the effect, Is it meant that the molecules composing these sensible particles have re-arranged themselves ? We find no evi- dence of such an action in the individual fragments ; the mica is still mica, and possesses all the properties of mica ; and so of the other ingredients of which the rock is com- posed. Independent of this, that an aggregate of hetero- geneous mineral fragments should, without any assignable external cause, so shift its molecules as to produce a plane of cleavage common to them all, is, in my opinion, an as- sumption too heavy for any theory to bear. MECHANICAL THEORY. 5 Nevertheless, the paper of Professor Sedgwick invested the subject of slaty cleavage with an interest not to be forgotten, and proved the stimulus to further inquiry. The structure of slate-rocks was more closely examined ; the fossils which they contained were subjected to rigid scrutiny, and their shapes compared with those of the same species taken from other rocks. Thus proceeding, the late Mr. Daniel Sharpe found that the fossils contained in slate- rocks are distorted in shape, being uniformly flattened out in the direction of the planes of cleavage. Here, then, was a fact of capital importance, the shells became the indi- cators of an action to which the mass containing them had been subjected ; they demonstrated the operation of pres- sure acting at right angles to the planes of cleavage. The more the subject was investigated, the more clearly I were the evidences of pressure made out. Subsequent to Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Sorby entered upon this field of inquiry. With great skill and patience he prepared sections of slate rock, which he submitted to microscopic examination, and his observations showed that the evidences of pressure could be plainly traced, even in his minute specimens. The sub- ject has been since ably followed up by Professors Haugh ton, Harkness, and others ; but to the two gentlemen first men- tioned we are, I think, indebted for the prime facts on ; which rests the mechanical theory of slaty cleavage.* The observations just referred to showed the co-existence of the two phenomena, but they did not prove that pressure and cleavage stood to each other in the relation of cause and effect. " Can the pressure produce the cleavage ? " | was still an open question, and it was one which mere rea- soning, unaided by experiment, was incompetent to answer. * Mr. Sorby has drawn my attention to an able and interesting paper by M. Bauer, in Karsten's ' Archiv ' for 1846 ; in which it is announced that cleavage is a tension of the mass produced by pressure. The author refers to the experiments of Mr. Hopkins as bearing upon the question. 6 LECTURE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. Sharpe despaired of an experimental solution, regarding our means as inadequate, and our time on earth too short to produce the result. Mr. Sorby was more hopeful. Sub- mitting mixtures of gypsum and oxide of iron scales to pressure, he found that the scales set themselves approx- imately at right angles to the direction in which the pres- sure was applied. The position of the scales resembled that of the plates of mica which his researches had dis- closed to him in slate-rock, and he inferred that the pre- sence of such plates, and of flat or elongated fragments generally, lying all in the same general direction, was the cause of slaty cleavage. At the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow, in 1855, 1 had the pleasure of seeing some of Mr. Sorby's specimens, and, though the cleavage they exhibited was very rough, still, the tendency to yield at right angles to the direction in which the pres- sure had been applied, appeared sufficiently manifest. At the time now referred to, I was engaged, and had been for a long time previously, in examining the effects of pressure upon the magnetic force, and, as far back as 1851, I had noticed that some of the bodies which I had subjected to pressure exhibited a cleavage of surpassing- beauty and delicacy. The bearing of such facts upon the present question now forcibly occurred to me. I fol- lowed up the observations ; visited slate-yards and quarries, observed the exfoliation of rails, the fibres of iron, the struc- ture of tiles, pottery, and cheese, and had several practical lessons in the manufacture of puff-paste and other lami- nated confectionery. My observations, I thought, pointed to a theory of slaty cleavage different from any previously given, and which, moreover, referred a great number of apparently unrelated phenomena to a common cause. On the 10th of June, 1856, 1 made them the subject of a Friday evening's discourse at the Royal Institution. Such are the circumstances, apparently remote enough. ORIGIN OF RESEARCHES. 7 under which my connexion with glaciers originated. My friend, Professor Huxley, was present at the lecture re- ferred to : lie was well acquainted with the work of Pro- fessor Forbes, entitled " Travels in the Alps," and he surmised that the question of slaty cleavage, in its new aspect, might have some bearing upon the laminated struc- ture of glacier-ice discussed in the work referred to. He therefore urged me to read the " Travels," which I did with care, and the book made the same impression upon me that it had produced upon my friend. We were both going to Switzerland that year, and it required but a slight modification of our plans to arrange a joint excursion over some of the glaciers of the Oberland, and thus afford our- selves the means of observing together the veined struc- ture of the ice. Had the results of this arrangement been revealed to me beforehand, I should have paused before entering upon an investigation which required of me so long a renunciation of my old and more favourite pursuits. But no man knows when he commences the examination of a physical problem into what new and complicated mental alliances it may lead him. No fragment of nature can be studied alone : each part is related to every other part ; and hence it is, that, following up the links of law which connect pheno- mena, the physical investigator often finds himself led far beyond the scope of his original intentions, the danger in this respect augmenting in direct proportion to the wish of the inquirer to render his knowledge solid and complete. When the idea of writing this book first occurred to me, it was not my intention to confine myself to the glaciers alone, but to make the work a vehicle for the familiar ex- planation of such general physical phenomena as had come under my notice. Nor did I intend to address it to a cul- tured man of science, but to & youth of average intelligence, and furnished with the education which England now offers 8 A BOY'S BOOK. to the young. I wished indeed to make it a boy's class- book, which should reveal the mode of life, as well as the scientific objects, of an explorer of the Alps. The incidents of the past year have caused me to deviate, in some degree, from this intention, but its traces will be sufficiently mani- fest; and this reference to it will, I trust, excuse an occasional liberty of style and simplicity of treatment which would be out of place if intended for a reader of riper years. 1856.] THE OBERLAND. EXPEDITION OF 1856. t THE OBERLAND. (2.) ON the 16th of August, 1856, 1 received my Alpenstock from the hands of Dr. Hooker, in the garden of the Pension Ober, at Interlaken. It bore my name, not marked, how- ever, by the vulgar brands of the country, but by the solar beams which had been converged upon it by the pocket lens of my friend. I was the companion of Mr. Huxley, and our first aim was to cross the Wengern Alp. Light and shadow enriched the crags and green slopes as we advanced up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and each occupied himself with that which most interested him. My companion examined the drift, I the cleavage, while both of us looked with interest at the contortions of the strata to our left, and at the shadowy, unsubstantial aspect of the pines, gleaming through the sun-haze to our right. What was the physical condition of the rock when it was thus bent and folded like a pliant mass ? Was it neces- sarily softer than it is at present ? I do not think so. The shock which would crush a railway carriage, if communi- cated to it at once, is harmless when distributed over the interval necessary for the pushing in of the buffer. By suddenly stopping a cock from which water flows you may burst the conveyance pipe, while a slow turning of the cock keeps all safe. Might not a solid rock by ages of pressure be folded as above ? It is a physical axiom that no body is perfectly hard, none perfectly soft, none perfectly elastic. The hardest body subjected to pressure yields, however little, and the same body when the pressure is removed 10 FOLDED ROCKS. [1856. cannot return to its original form. If it did not yield in the slightest degree it would be perfectly hard ; if it could completely return to its original shape it would be per- fectly elastic. Let a pound weight be placed upon a cube of granite : the cube is flattened, though in an infinitesimal degree. Let the weight be removed, the cube remains a little flattened ; it cannot quite return to its primitive condition. Let us call the cube thus flattened No. 1. Starting with No. 1 as a new mass, let the pound weight be laid upon it : the mass yields, and on removing the weight it cannot return to the dimensions of No. 1 ; we have a more flat- tened mass, No. 2. Proceeding in this manner, it is manifest that by a repetition of the process we should pro- duce a series of masses, each succeeding one more flat- tened than the former. This appears to be a necessary consequence of the physical axiom referred to above. Now if, instead of removing and replacing the weight in the manner supposed, we cause it to rest continuously upon the cube, the flattening, which above was intermit- tent, will be continuous ; no matter how hard the cube may be, there will be a gradual yielding of its mass under the pressure. Apply this to squeezed rocks, to those, for example, which form the base of an obelisk like the Matte rhorn ; that this base must yield, seems a certain consequence of the physical constitution of matter ; the conclusion seems inevitable, that the mountain is sinking by its own weight. Let two points be fixed, one near the summit, the other near the base of the obelisk ; next year these points will have approached each other. Whether the amount of approach in a human lifetime be measure- able we know not ; but it seems certain that ages would leave their impress upon the mass, and render visible to the eye an action which at present is appreciable by the imagination only. 1856.] THE JUNGFRAU AND SILBERHORN. 11 We halted on the night of the 16th at the Jungfrau Hotel, and next morning we saw the beams of the rising sun fall upon the peaked snow of the Silberhorn. Slowly and solemnly the pure white cone appeared to rise higher and higher into the sunlight, being afterwards mottled with gold and gloom, as clouds drifted between it and the sun. I descended alone towards the base of the mountain, making my way through a rugged gorge, the sides of which were strewn with pine-trees, splintered, broken across, and torn up by the roots. I finally reached the end of a glacier, formed by the snow and shattered ice which fall from the shoulders of the Jungfrau. The view from this place had a savage magnificence such as I had not previously beheld, and it was not without some slight feeling of awe that I clambered up the end of the glacier. It was the first I had actually stood upon. The lone- liness of the place was very impressive, the silence being only broken by fitful gusts of wind, or by the weird rattle of the de'bris which fell at intervals from the melting ice. Once I noticed what appeared to be the sudden and enormous augmentation of the waters of a cascade, but the sound soon informed me that the increase was due to an avalanche which had chosen the track of the cascade for its rush. Soon afterwards my eyes were fixed upon a white slope some thousands of feet above me : I saw the ice give way, and, after a sensible interval, the thunder of another avalanche reached me. A kind of zigzag chan- nel had been worn on the side of the mountain, and through this the avalanche rushed, hidden at intervals, and anon shooting forth, and leaping like a cataract down the precipices. The sound was sometimes continuous, . but sometimes broken into rounded explosions which seemed to assert a passionate predominance over the general level of the roar. These avalanches, when they first give way, usually consist of enormous blocks of ice, which are more 12 AVALANCHES. [1856. and more shattered as they descend. Partly to the echos of the first crash, but mainly, I think, to the shock of the harder masses which preserve their cohesion, the explo- sions which occur during the descent of the avalanche are to be ascribed. Much of the ice is crushed to powder ; and thus, when an avalanche pours cataract-like over a ledge, the heavier masses, being less influenced by the atmos- pheric resistance, shoot forward like descending rockets, leaving the lighter powder in trains behind them. Such is the material of which a class of the smaller glaciers in the Alps is composed. They are the products of avalanches, the crushed ice being recompacted into a solid mass, which exhibits on a smaller scale most of the character- istics of the large glaciers. After three hours' absence I reascended to the hotel, breakfasted, and afterwards returned with Mr. Huxley to the glacier. While we were engaged upon it the weather suddenly changed ; lightning flashed about the summits of the Jungfrau, and thunder " leaped " among her crags. Heavy rain fell, but it cleared up afterwards with magical speed, and we returned to our hotel. Heedless of the forebodings of many prophets of evil weather, we set out for Grindelwald. The scene from the summit of the little Scheideck was exceedingly grand. The upper air ex- hibited a commotion which we did not experience ; clouds were wildly driven against the flanks of the Eiger, the Jungfrau thundered behind, while in front of us a magni- ficent rainbow, fixing one of its arms in the valley of Grindelwald, and throwing the other right over the crown of the Wetterhorn, clasped the mountain in its embrace. Through jagged apertures in the clouds floods of golden light were poured down the sides of the mountain. On the slopes were innumerable chalets, glistening in the sunbeams, herds browsing peacefully and shaking their mellow bells ; while the blackness of the pine-trees, crowded 1856.] THE HEISSE PLATTE. 13 into woods, or scattered in pleasant clusters over alp and valley, contrasted forcibly with the lively green of the fields. At Grindelwald, on the 18th, we engaged a strong and competent guide, named Christian Kaufmann, and pro- ceeded to the Lower Glacier. After a steep ascent, we gained a point from which we could look down upon the frozen mass. At first the ice presented an appearance of utter confusion, but we soon reached a position where the mechanical conditions of the glacier revealed themselves, and where we might learn, had we not known it before, that confusion is merely the unknown intermixture of laws, and becomes order and beauty when we rise to their com- prehension. We reached the so-called Eismeer, Ice Sea. In front of us was the range of the Viescherhorner, and a vast snow slope, from which one branch of the glacier was fed. Near the base of this neve, and surrounded on all sides by ice, lay a brown rock, to which our attention was directed as a place noted for avalanches ; on this rock snow or ice never rests, and it is hence called the Heisse Platte, the Hot Plate. At the base of the rock, and far below it, the glacier was covered with clean crushed ice, which had fallen from a crown of frozen cliffs en- circling the brow of the rock. One obelisk in particular signalised itself from all others by its exceeding grace and beauty. Its general surface was dazzling white, but from its clefts and fissures issued a delicate blue light, which deepened in hue from the edges inwards. It stood upon a pedestal of its own substance, and seemed as accurately fixed as if rule and plummet had been employed in its erection. Fig. 1 represents this beautiful minaret of ice. While we were in sight of the Heisse Platte, a dozen avalanches rushed downwards from its summit. In most cases we were informed of the descent of an avalanche by the sound, but sometimes the white mass was seen gliding 14 ICE MINARET. [1856. down the rock, and scattering its smoke in the air, long before the sound reached us. It is difficult to reconcile the insignificant appearance presented by avalanches, when seen from a distance, with the volume of sound which they Fig. 1. generate ; but on this day we saw sufficient to account for the noise. One block of solid ice which we found below the Heisse Platte measured 7 feet 6 inches in length, 5 feet 8 inches in height, and 4 feet 6 inches in depth. A second mass was 10 feet long, 8 feet high, and 6 feet wide. It contained therefore 480 cubic feet of ice, which had been cast to a distance of nearly 1,000 yards down the glacier. The shock of such hard and ponderous projec- tiles against rocks and ice, reinforced by the echos from 1856.] ECHOS OF THE WETTERHORN. 15 the surrounding mountains, will appear sufficient to ac- count for the peals by which their descent is accompanied. A second day, in company with Dr. Hooker, completed the examination of this glacier in 1856 ; after which I parted from my friends, Mr. Huxley intending to rejoin me at the Grimsel. On the morning of the 20th of August I strapped on my knapsack and ascended the green slopes from Grindelwald towards the great Scheideck. Before j reaching the summit I frequently heard the wonderful ! echos of the Wetterhorn. Some travellers were in ad- j vance of me, and to amuse them an alpine horn was blown. The direct sound was cut off from me by a hill, ' but the echos talked down to me from the mountain j walls. The sonorous waves arrived after one, two, three, and more reflections, diminishing gradually in intensity, but increasing in softness, as if in its wanderings from 1 crag to crag the sound had undergone a kind of sifting process, leaving all its grossness behind, and returning in delightful flute-notes to the ear. Let us investigate this point a little. If two looking- glasses be placed perfectly parallel to each other, with a lighted candle between them, an infinite series of images of the candle will be seen at both sides, the images dimin- ishing in brightness the further they recede. But if the looking-glasses, instead of being parallel, enclose an angle, a limited number of images only will be seen. The mailer the angle which the reflectors make with each )ther, or, in other words, the nearer they approach parallel- sm, the greater will be the number of images observed. To find the number of images the following is the rule. )ivide 360, or the number of degrees in a circle, by the lumber of degrees in the angle enclosed by the two mir- rors, the quotient will be one more than the number of mages ; or, counting the object itself, the quotient is al- vays equal to the number of images plus the object. In 16 ECHOS EXPLAINED. [1856. Fig. 2, 1 have given the number and position of the images ; produced by two mirrors placed at an angle of 45. A B and B C mark the edges j of the mirrors, and rep- resents the candle, which, i for the sake of simplicity, | I have placed midway j between them. Fix onej 8 point of a pair of com-; passes at B, and with, the distance B sweep a| circle : all the imagesl will be ranged upon the\ circumference of this cir-\ cle. The number of im-l ages found by the fore-j going rule is 7, and their positions are marked in thej figure by the numbers 1, 2, 3, &c. Suppose the ear to occupy the place of the eye, and- that a sounding body occupies the place of the lurmnousi one, we should then have just as many echos as we had images in the former case. These echos would diminish} in loudness just as the images of the candle diminish ini brightness. At each reflection a portion both of sound! and light is lost ; hence the oftener light is reflected the- dimmer it becomes, and the oftener sound is reflected the> fainter it is. Now the cliffs of the Wetterhorn are so many rough angular reflectors of the sound : some of them send it back directly to the listener, and we have a first echo ; some ol them send it on to others, from which it is again re-! fleeted, forming a second echo. Thus, by repeated reflec- tion, successive echos are sent to the ear, until, at length, they become so faint as to be inaudible. The sound, as it diminishes in intensity, appears to come from greater 1856.] KEICHENBACH AND HANDECK. 17 and greater distances, as if it were receding into the moun- tain solitudes ; the final echos being inexpressibly soft and pure. After crossing the Scheideck I descended to Meyringen, visiting the Reichenbach waterfall on my way. A pecu- liarity of the descending water here is, that it is broken up in one of the basins into nodular masses, each of which in falling leaves the light foaming mass which surrounds it as a train in the air behind ; the effect exactly resembles that of the avalanches of the Jungfrau, in which the more solid blocks of ice shoot forward in advance of the lighter de'bris, which is held back by the friction of the air. Next day I ascended the valley of Hasli, and observed upon the rocks and mountains the action of ancient glaciers which once filled the valley to the height of more than a thousand feet above its present level. I paused, of course, at the waterfall of Handeck, and stood for a time upon the wooden bridge which spans the river at its top. The Aar comes gambolling down to the bridge from its parent glacier, takes one short jump upon a projecting ledge, boils up into foam, and then leaps into a chasm, from the bottom of which its roar ascends through the gloom. A rivulet named the Aarlenbach joins the Aar from the left in the very jaws of the chasm : falling, at first, upon a projection at some depth below the edge, and rebound- ing from this, it darts at the Aar, and both plunge to- gether like a pair of fighting demons to the bottom of the gorge. The foam of the Aarlenbach is white, that of the Aar is yellow, and this enables the observer to trace the passage of the one cataract through the other. As I stood upon the bridge the sun shone brightly upon the spray and foam ; my shadow was oblique to the river, and hence a symmetrical rainbow could not be formed in the spray, but one half of a lovely bow, with its base in the chasm, leaned over against the opposite rocks, the colours 2 18 HUT OF M. DOLFUSS. [1856. advancing and retreating as the spray shifted its position. I had been watching the water intently for some time, when a little Swiss boy, who stood beside me, observed, in his trenchant German, " There plunge stones ever downwards." The stones were palpable enough, carried down by the cataract, and sometimes completely breaking loose from it, but I did not see them until my attention was withdrawn from the water. On my arrival at the Grimsel I found Mr. Huxley already there, and, after a few minutes' conversation, we decided to spend a night in a hut built by M. Dolfuss in 1846, beside the Unteraar glacier, about 2,000 feet above the Hospice. We hoped thus to be able to examine the glacier to its origin on the following day. Two days' food and some blankets were sent up from the Hospice, and, accompanied by our guide, we proceeded to the glacier. Having climbed a great terminal moraine, and tramped for a considerable time amid loose shingle and boulders, we came upon the ice. The finest specimens of" tables ' which I have ever seen are to be found upon this glacier, huge masses of clean granite poised on pedestals of ice. Here are also " dirt-cones " of the largest size, and nume- rous shafts, the forsaken passages of ancient " moulins," some filled with water, others simply with deep blue light. I reserve the description and explanation of both cones and moulins for another place. The surfaces of some of the small pools were sprinkled lightly over with snow, which the water underneath was unable to melt ; a coating of snow granules was thus formed, flexible as chain armour, but so close that the air could not escape through it. Some bubbles which had risen through the water had lifted the coating here and there into little rounded domes, which, by gentle pressure, could be shifted hither and thither, and several of them collected into one. We reached the hut, the floor of which appeared to be of the original moun- 1856.] HOTEL DES NEUFCHATELOIS. 19 tain slab ; there was a space for cooking walled off from the sleeping-room, half of which was raised above the floor, and contained a quantity of old hay. The number 2,404 metres, the height, I suppose, of the place above the sea, was painted on the door, behind which were also the names of several well-known observers Agassiz, Forbes, Desor, Dolfuss, Ramsay, and others cut in the wood. Aloft contained a number of instruments for boring, a surveyor's chain, ropes, and other matters. After dinner I made my way alone towards the junction of the Finsteraar and Lauteraar glaciers, which unite at the Abschwung to form the trunk stream of the Unteraar glacier. Upon the great central moraine which runs between the branches were perched enormous masses of rock, and, under the over- hanging ledge of one of these, M. Agassiz had his Hotel des Neufchdtelois. The rock is still there, bearing traces of names now nearly obliterated by the weather, while the fragments around also bear inscriptions. There in the wilderness, in the gray light of evening, these blurred and faded evidences of human activity wore an aspect of sad- ness. It was a temple of science now in ruins, and I a solitary pilgrim to the desecrated blocks. As the day de- clined, rain began to fall, and I turned my face towards my new home ; where in due time we betook ourselves to our hay, and waited hopefully for the morning. But our hopes were doomed to disappointment. A vast quantity of snow fell during the night, and, when we arose, we found the glacier covered, and the air thick with the descending flakes. We waited, hoping that it might clear up, but noon arrived and passed without improvement ; our fire-wood was exhausted, the weather intensely cold, and, according to the men's opinion, hopelessly bad ; they opposed the idea of ascending further, and we had therefore no alternative but to pack up and move down- wards. What was snow at the higher elevations changed 20 THE RHONE GLACIER. [1856. to rain lower down, and drenched us completely before we reached the Grimsel. But though thus partially foiled in our design, this visit taught us much regarding the struc- ture and general phenomena of the glacier. The morning of the 24th was clear and calm : we rose with the sun, refreshed and strong, and crossed the Grimsel pass at an early hour. The view from the summit of the pass was lovely in the extreme ; the sky a deep blue, the surrounding summits all enamelled with the newly-fallen snow, which gleamed with dazzling whiteness in the sun- light. It was Sunday, and the scene was itself a Sabbath, with no sound to disturb its perfect rest. In a lake which we passed the mountains were mirrored without distortion, for there was no motion of the air to ruffle its surface. From the summit of the Mayenwand we looked down upon the Rhone glacier, and a noble object it seemed, I hard- ly know a finer of its kind in the Alps. Forcing itself through the narrow gorge which holds the ice cascade in its jaws, and where it is greatly riven and dislocated, it spreads out in the valley below in such a manner as clearly to reveal to the mind's eye the nature of the forces to which it is subjected. Longfellow's figure is quite correct ; the glacier resembles a vast gauntlet, of which the gorge represents the wrist ; while the lower glacier, cleft by its fissures into finger-like ridges, is typified by the hand. Furnishing ourselves with provisions at the adjacent inn, we devoted some hours to the examination of the lower portion of the glacier. The dirt upon its surface was arranged in grooves as fine as if produced by the passage of a rake, while the laminated structure of the deeper ice always corresponded to the superficial grooving. We found several shafts, some empty, some filled with water. At one place our attention was attracted by a singular noise, evidently produced by the forcing of air and water through passages in the body of the glacier ; the sound 1856.] KINGS AROUND THE SUN. 21 rose and fell for several minutes, like a kind of intermit- tent snore, reminding one of Hugi's hypothesis that the glacier was alive. We afterwards climbed to a point from which the whole glacier was visible to us from its origin to its end. Adjacent to us rose the mighty mass of the Finsteraarhorn, the monarch of the Oberland. The Galenstock was also at hand, while round about the neve of the glacier a moun- tain wall projected its jagged outline against the sky. At a distance was the grand cone of the Weisshorn, then, and I believe still, unsealed ; further to the left the magnificent peaks of the Mischabel ; while between them, in savage isolation, stood the obelisk of the Matterhorn. Near us was the chain of the Furca, all covered with shining snow, while overhead the dark blue of the firmament so influenced the general scene as to inspire a sentiment of wonder approaching to awe. We descended to the glacier, and proceeded towards its source. As we advanced, an unu- sual light fell upon the mountains, and looking upwards we saw a series of coloured rings, drawn like a vivid circular rainbow quite round the sun. Between the orb and us spread a thin veil of cloud, on which the circles were painted ; the western side of the veil soon melted away, and with it the colours, but the eastern half remained a quarter of an hour longer, and then in its turn disap- peared. The crevasses became more frequent and dan- gerous as we ascended. They were usually furnished with overhanging eaves of snow, from which long icicles de- pended, and to tread on which might be fatal. We were near the source of the glacier, but the time necessary to reach it was nevertheless indefinite, so great was the en- tanglement of fissures. We followed one huge chasm for some hundreds of yards, hoping to cross it ; but after half an hour's fruitless effort we found ourselves baffled and forced to retrace our steps. 22 SPIRIT OF THE BROCKEN. [1856. The sun was sloping to the west, and we thought it wise to return ; so down the glacier we went, mingling our footsteps with the tracks of chamois, while the frightened marmots piped incessantly from the rocks. We reached the land once more, and halted for a time to look upon the scene within view. The marvellous blueness of the sky in the earlier part of the day indicated that the air was charged, almost to saturation, with transparent aqueous vapour. As the sun sank the shadow of the Finsteraar- horn was cast through the adjacent atmosphere, which, thus deprived of the direct rays, curdled up into visible fog. The condensed vapour moved slowly along the flanks of the mountain, and poured itself cataract-like into the valley of the Rhone. Here it met the sun again, which reduced it once more to the invisible state. Thus, though there was an incessant supply from the generator behind, the fog made no progress ; as in the case of the moving glacier, the end of the cloud-river remained stationary where consumption was equal to supply. Proceeding along the mountain to the Furca, we found the valley at the further side of the pass also filled with fog, which rose, like a wall, high above the region of actual shadow. Once on turning a corner an exclamation of surprise burst simul- taneously from my companion and myself. Before each of us, and against the wall of fog, stood a spectral image of a man, of colossal dimensions ; dark as a whole, but bounded by a coloured outline. We stretched forth our arms ; the spectres did the same. We raised our alpen- stocks ; the spectres also flourished their batons. All our actions were imitated by these fringed and gigantic shades. We had, in fact, the Spirit of the Brocken before us in perfection. At the time here referred to I had had but little expe- rience of alpine phenomena. I had been through the Oberland in 1850, but was then too ignorant to learn 1856.] THE TYROL. 23 much from my excursion. Hence the novelty of this day's experience may have rendered it impressive : still even now I think there was an intrinsic grandeur in its pheno- mena which entitles the day to rank with the most re- markable that I have spent among the Alps. At the Furca, to my great regret, the joint ramblings of my friend and myself ended ; I parted from him on the mountain side, and watched him descending, till the gray of evening finally hid him from my view. THE TYROL. (3.) MY subsequent destination was Vienna ; but I wished to associate with my journey thither a visit to some of the glaciers of the Tyrol. At Landeck, on the 29th of August, I learned that the nearest glacier was that adjacent to the Gebatsch Alp, at the head of the Kaunserthal ; and on the following morning I was on my way towards this valley. I sought to obtain a guide at Kaltebrunnen, but failed ; and afterwards walked to the little hamlet of Feuchten, where I put up at a very lowly inn. My host, I believe, had never seen an Englishman, but he had heard of such, and remarked to me in his patois with emphasis, " Die Eng- lander sind die kiihnste Leute in dieserWelt." Through his mediation I secured a chamois-hunter, named Johann Auer, to be my guide, and next morning I started with this man up the valley. The sun, as we ascended, smote the earth and us with great power ; high mountains flanked us on either side, while in front of us, closing the view, was the mass of the Weisskugel, covered with snow. At three 24 THE GEBATSCH ALP. [1856. o'clock we came in sight of the glacier, and soon afterwards I made the acquaintance of the Senner or cheesemakers of the Gebatsch Alp. The chief of these was a fine tall fellow, with free, frank countenance, which, however, had a dash of the mountain wild ness in it. His feet were bare, he wore breeches, and fragments of stockings partially covered his legs, leaving a black zone between the upper rim of the sock and the breeches. His feet and face were of the same swarthy hue ; still he was handsome, and in a measure pleasant to look upon. He asked me what he could cook for me, and I requested some bread and milk ; the former was a month old, the latter was fresh and delicious, and on these I fared sumptuously. I went to the glacier afterwards with my guide, and remained upon the ice until twilight, when we returned, guided by no path, 'but passing amid crags grasped by the gnarled roots of the pine, through green dells, and over bilberry knolls of exquisite colour- ing. My guide kept in advance of me singing a Tyrolese melody, and his song and the surrounding scene revived and realised all the impressions of my boyhood regarding the Tyrol. Milking was over when we returned to the chalet, which now contained four men exclusive of myself and my guide. A fire of pine logs was made upon a platform of stone, elevated three feet above the floor ; there was no chimney, as the smoke found ample vent through the holes and fissures in the sides and roof. The men were all intensely sunburnt, the legitimate brown deepening into black with beard and dirt. The chief senner prepared supper, break- ing eggs into a dish, and using his black fingers to empty the shell when the albumen was refractory. A fine erect figure he was as he stood in the glowing light of the fire. All the men were smoking, and now and then a brand was taken from the fire to light a renewed pipe, and 1856.] AN ALPINE CHALET. 25 a ruddy glare flung thereby over the wild countenance of the smoker. In one corner of the chalet, and raised high above the ground, was a large bed, covered with clothes of the most dubious black-brown hue ; at one end was a little water-wheel turned by a brook, which communi- cated motion to a churndash which made the butter. The beams and rafters were covered with cheeses, drying in the warm smoke. The senner, at my request, showed me his storeroom, and explained to me the process of making cheese, its interest to me consisting in its bearing upon the question of slaty cleavage. Three gigantic masses of butter were in the room, and I amused my host by calling them butter-glaciers. Soon afterwards a bit of cotton was stuck in a lump of grease, which was placed in a lantern, and the wick ignited ; the chamois-hunter took it, and led the way to our resting-place, I having previously declined a good-natured invitation to sleep in the big black bed already referred to. There was a cowhouse near the chalet, and above it, raised on pillars of pine, and approached by a ladder, was a loft, which contained a quantity of dry hay : this my guide shook to soften the lumps, and erected an eminence for my head. I lay down, drawing my plaid over me, but Auer affirmed that this would not be a sufficient protec- tion against the cold ; he therefore piled hay upon me to the shoulders, and proposed covering up my head also. This, however, I declined, though the biting coldness of the air, which sometimes blew in upon us, afterwards proved to me the wisdom of the suggestion. Having set me right, my chamois-hunter prepared a place for himself, and soon his heavy breathing informed me that he was in a state of bliss which I could only envy. One by one the stars crossed the apertures in the roof. Once the Pleiades hung above me like a cluster of gems ; I tried to admire them, but there was no fervour in my admiration. 26 THE GEBATSCH GLACIER. [1856. Sometimes I dozed, but always as this was about to deepen into positive sleep it was rudely broken by the clamour of a group of pigs which occupied the ground-floor of our dwelling. The object of each individual of the group was to secure for himself the maximum amount of heat, and hence the outside members were incessantly trying to become inside ones. It was the struggle of radical and conservative among the pachyderms, the politics be- ing determined by the accident of position. I rose at five o'clock on the 1st of September, and after a breakfast of black bread and milk ascended the glacier as far as practicable. We .once quitted it, crossed a pro- montory, and descended upon one of its branches, which was flanked by some fine old moraines. We here came upon a group of seven marmots, which with yells of ter- ror scattered themselves among the rocks. The points of the glacier beyond my reach I examined through a tel- escope ; along the faces of the sections the lines of strati- fication were clearly shown ; and in many places where the mass showed manifest signs of lateral pressure, I thought I could observe the cleavage passing through the strata. The point, however, was too important to rest upon an observation made from such a distance, and I therefore abstained from mentioning it subsequently. I examined the fissures and the veining, and noticed how the latter became most perfect in places where the press- ure was greatest. The effect of oblique pressure was also finely shown : at one place the thrust of the descending glacier was opposed by the resistance offered by the side of the valley, the direction of the force being oblique to the side ; the consequence was a structure nearly parallel to the valley, and consequently oblique to the thrust which I believe to be its cause. After five hours' examination we returned to our chalet, where we refreshed ourselves, put our things in order, and 1856.] A CHAMOIS ON THE ROCKS. 27 faced a nameless " Joch," or pass ; our aim being to cross the mountains into the valley of Lantaufer, and reach Graun that evening. After a rough ascent over the alp we came to the dead crag, where the weather had broken up the mountains into ruinous heaps of rock and shingle. We reached the end of a glacier, the ice of which was covered by sloppy snow, and at some distance up it came upon an islet of stones and debris, where we paused to rest ourselves. My guide, as usual, ranged over the sum- mits with his telescope, and at length exclaimed, " I see a chamois." The creature stood upon a cliff some hundreds of yards to our left, and seemed to watch our movements. It was a most graceful animal, and its life and beauty stood out in forcible antithesis to the surrounding sav- agery and death. On the steep slopes of the glacier I was assisted by the hand of my guide. In fact, on this day I deemed places dangerous, and dreaded them as such, which subsequent practice enabled me to regard with perfect indifference ; so much does what we call courage depend upon habit, or on the fact of knowing that we have really nothing to fear. Doubtless there are times when a climber has to make up his mind for very unpleasant possibilities, and even gather calmness from the contemplation of the worst ; but in most cases I should say that his courage is derived from the latent feeling that the chances of safety are immensely in his favour. After a tough struggle we reached the narrow row of crags which form the crest of the pass, and looked into the world of mountain and cloud on the other side. The scene was one of stern grandeur, the misty lights and deep cloud-glooms being so disposed as to augment the impression of vastness which the scene conveyed. The breeze at the summit was exceedingly keen, but it gave our muscles tone, and we sprang swiftly downward 28 PASSAGE OF A JOCH. [1856. through the yielding de*bris which here overlies the moun- tain, and in which we sometimes sank to the knees. Lower down we came once more upon the ice. The glacier had at one place melted away from its bounding cliff, which rose vertically to our right, while a wall of ice 60 or 80 feet high was on our left. Between both was a narrow passage, the floor of which was snow, which I knew to be hollow beneath : my companion, however, was in advance of me, and he being the heavier man, where he trod I followed without hesitation. On turn- ing an angle of the rock I noticed an expression of concern upon his countenance, and he muttered audibly, " I did not expect this." The snow-floor had, in fact, given way, and exposed to view a clear green lake, one boundary of which was a sheer precipice of rock, and the other the aforesaid wall of ice ; the latter, however, curved a little at its base, so as to form a short steep slope which overhung the water. My guide first tried the slope alone ; biting the ice with his shoe-nails, and holding on by the spike of his baton, he reached the other side. He then returned, and, divesting myself of all superfluous clothes, as a preparation for the plunge which I fully expected, I also passed in safety. Probably the consciousness that I had water to fall into instead of pure space, enabled me to get across without anxiety or mischance ; but had I, like rny guide, been unable to swim, my feelings would have been far different. This accomplished, we went swiftly down the valley, and the more I saw of my guide, the more I liked him. He might, if he wished, have made his day's journey shorter by stopping before he reached Graun, but he would not do so. Every word he said to me regarding distances was true, and there was not the slightest de- sire shown to magnify his own labour. I learnt by mere accident that the day's work had cut up his feet, but his 1856.] THE STELVIO. 29 cheerfulness and energy did not bate a jot till he had landed me in the Black Eagle at Graun. Next morning he came to my room, and said that he felt sufficiently re- freshed to return home. I paid him what I owed him, when he took my hand, and, silently bending down his head, kissed it ; then, standing erect, he stretched forth his right hand, which I grasped firmly in mine, and bade him farewell ; and thus I parted from Johann Auer, my brave and truthful chamois-hunter. On the following day I met Dr. Frankland in the Fin- stermuntz pass, and that night we bivouacked together at Mais. Heavy rain fell throughout the night, but it came from a region high above that of liquidity. It was first snow, which, as it descended through the warmer strata of the atmosphere, was reduced to water. Overhead, in the air, might be traced a surface, below which the pre- cipitate was liquid, above which it was solid ; and this surface, intersecting the mountains which surround Mais, marked upon them a beautifully-defined snow-line, below which the pines were dark and the pastures green, but above which pines and pastures and crags were covered with the freshly-fallen snow. On the 2d of September we crossed the Stelvio. The brown cone of the well-known Madatschspitze was clear, but the higher summits were clouded, and the fragments of sunshine which reached the lower world wandered like gleams of fluorescent light over the glaciers. Near the snow-line the partial melting of the snow had rendered it coarsely granular, but as we ascended it became finer, and the light emitted from its cracks and cavities a pure and deep blue. When a staff was driven into the snow low down the mountain, the colour of the light in the orifice was scarcely sensibly blue, but higher up this increased in a wonderful degree, and at the summit the effect was mar- vellous. I struck my staff into the snow, and turned it 30 COLOUR OF FRESH SNOW. [1856. round and round ; the surrounding snow cracked repeat- edly, and flashes of blue light issued from the fissures. The fragments of snow that adhered to the staff were, by contrast, of a beautiful pink yellow, so that, on moving the staff with such fragments attached to it up and down, it was difficult to resist the impression that a pink flame was ascending and descending in the hole. As we went down the other side of the pass, the effect became more and more feeble, until, near the snow-line, it almost wholly disappeared. We remained that night at the baths of Bormio, but, the following afternoon being fine, we wished to avail our- selves of the fair weather to witness the scene from the summit of the pass. Twilight came on before we reached Santa Maria, but a gorgeous orange overspread the west- ern horizon, from which we hoped to derive sufficient light. It was a little too late when we reached the top, but still the scene was magnificent. A multitude of mountains raised their crowns towards heaven, while above all rose the snow-white cone of the Ortler. Far into the valley the giant stretched his granite limbs, until they were hid from us by darkness. As this deepened, the heavens be- came more, and more crowded with stars, which blazed like gems over the heads of the mountains. At times the silence was perfect, unbroken save by the crackling of the frozen snow beneath our own feet ; while at other times a breeze would swoop down upon us, keen and hostile, scat- tering the snow from the roofs of the wooden galleries in frozen powder over iis. Long after night had set in, a ghastly gleam rested upon the summit of the Ortler, while the peaks in front deepened to a dusky neutral tint, the more distant ones being lost in gloom. We descended at a swift pace to Trafoi, which we reached before 11 P. M. Meran was our next resting-place, whence we turned through the Schnalzerthal to Unserfrau, and thence over 1856.] SINGULAR HAIL-STORM. 31 the Hochjoch to Fend. From a religious procession we took a guide, who, though partly intoxicated, did his duty well. Before reaching the summit of the pass we were assailed by a violent hailstorm, each hailstone being a frozen cone with a rounded end. Had not their motion through the air something to do with the shape of these hailstones ? The theory of meteorites now generally ac- cepted is that they are small planetary bodies drawn to the earth by gravity, and brought to incandescence by friction against the earth's atmosphere. Such a body moving through the atmosphere must have condensed hot air in front of it, and rarefied cool air behind it ; and the same is true to a small extent of a hailstone. This distri- bution of temperature must, I imagine, have some influ- ence on the shape of the stone. Possibly also the strati- fied appearance of some hailstones may be connected witli this action.* The hail ceased and the heights above us cleared as we ascended. At the top of the pass we found ourselves on the verge of a great nevS, which lay between two ranges of summits, sloping down to the base of each range from a high and rounded centre : a wilder glacier scene I have scarcely witnessed. Wishing to obtain a more perfect view of the region, I diverged from the track followed by Dr. Frankland and the guide, and climbed a ridge of snow * I take the following account of a grander storm of the above character from Hooker's "Himalayan Journals/' vol. ii. p. 405. "On the 20th (March, 1849) we had a change in the weather; a violent storm from the southwest occurred at noon, with hail of a strange form, the stones being sections of hollow spheres, half an inch across and upwards, formed of cones with truncated apices and convex bases : these cones were aggregated together with their bases outwards. The large masses were fol- lowed by a shower of the separate conical pieces, and that by heavy rain. On the mountains this storm was most severe j the stones lay at Dorjiling for seven clays, congealed into masses of ice several feet long and a foot thick in sheltered places : at Purneah, fifty miles south, stones one and two inches across fell, probably as whole spheres." 82 THE HOCHJOCH AND FEND. [1856. about half a mile to the right of them. A glorious ex- panse was before me, stretching itself in vast undulations, and heaping itself here and there into mountainous cones, white and pure, with the deep blue heaven behind them. Here I had my first experience of hidden crevasses, and to my extreme astonishment once found myself in the jaws of a fissure of whose existence I had not the slightest notice. Such accidents have often occurred to me since, but the impression made by the first is likely to remain the strongest. It was dark when we reached the wretched Wirthshaus at Fend, where, badly fed, badly lodged, and disturbed by the noise of innumerable rats, we spent the night. Thus ended my brief glacier expedition of 1856 ; and on the observations then made, and on subsequent experiments, was founded a paper presented to the Royal Society by Mr. Huxley and myself. 1857.J THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 33 EXPEDITION OF 1857. THE LAKE OF GENEVA. (4.) THE time occupied in the observations of 1856 embraced about five whole days ; and though these days were labo- rious and instructive, still so short a time proved to be wholly incommensurate with the claims of so wide a pro- blem. During the subsequent experimental treatment of the subject, I had often occasion to feel the incompleteness of my knowledge, and hence arose the desire to make a second expedition to the Alps, for the purpose of expand- ing, fortifying, or, if necessary, correcting first impressions. On Thursday, the 9th of July, 1857, 1 found myself upon the Lake of Geneva, proceeding towards Vevey. I had long wished to see the waters of this renowned inland sea, the colour of which is perhaps more interesting to the man of science than to the poets who have sung about it. Long ago its depth of blue excited attention, but no systematic examination of the subject has, so far as 1 know, been attempted. It may be that the lake simply exhibits the colour of pure water. Ice is blue, and it is reasonable to suppose that the liquid obtained from the fusion of ice is of the same colour ; but still the question presses, " Is the blue of the Lake of Geneva to be entirely accounted for in this way ? " The attempts which have been made to explain it otherwise, show that at least a doubt exists as to the sufficiency of the above explanation. It is only in its deeper portions that the colour of the lake is properly seen. Where the bottom comes into view the pure effect of the water is disturbed ; but where the 3 34 BLUENESS OF THE WATER. [1857. water is deep the colour is deep : between Rolle and Nyon for example, the blue is superb. Where the blue was deepest, however, it gave me the impression of turbidity rather than of deep transparency. At the upper portion of the lake the water through which the steamer passed was of a blue green. Wishing to see the place where the Rhone enters the lake, I walked on the morning of the 10th from Villeneuve to Novelle, and thence through the woods to the river side. Proceeding along an embankment, raised to defend the adjacent land from the incursions of the river, an hour brought me to the place where it empties itself into the lake. The contrast between the two waters was very great : the river was almost white with the finely divided matter which it held in suspension ; while the lake at some distance was of a deep ultramarine. The lake in fact forms a reservoir where the particles held in suspension by the river have time to subside, and its waters to become pure. The subsidence of course takes place most copiously at the head of the lake ; and here the deposit continues to form new land, adding year by year to the thousands of acres which it has already left behind it, and invading more and more the space occupied by the water. Innumerable plates of mica spangled the fine sand which the river brought down, and these, mixing with the water, and flashing like minute mirrors as the sun's rays fell upon them, gave the otherwise muddy stream a silvery appearance. Had I an opportunity I would make the following experiments : (a.) Compare the colour of the light transmitted by a column of the lake water fifteen feet long with that trans- mitted by a second column, of the same length, derived from the melting of freshly fallen mountain snow. (6.) Compare in the same manner the colour of the or- dinary water of the lake with that of the same water after careful distillation. 1857.] ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION. 35 (c.) Strictly examine whether the light transmitted by the ordinary water contains an excess of red over that transmitted by the distilled water : this latter point, as will be seen farther on, is one of peculiar interest. The length is fixed at fifteen feet, because I have found this length extremely efficient in similar experiments. On returning to the pier at Yilleneuve, a peculiar flick- ering motion was manifest upon the surface of the dis- tant portions of the lake, and I soon noticed that the coast line was inverted by atmospheric refraction. It required a long distance to produce the effect : no trace of it was seen about the Castle of Chillon, but at Vevey and beyond it, the whole coast was clearly inverted ; and the houses on the margin of the lake were also imaged to a certain height. Two boats at a considerable distance pre- sented the appearance sketched in Figs. 3 and 4 ; the hull Fig. 3. Fig. 4. of each, except a small portion at the end, was invisible, but the sails seemed lifted up high in the air, with their inverted images below ; as the boats drew nearer, the hulls appeared inverted, the apparent height of the vessel above the surface of the lake being thereby nearly doubled, 36 MIRAGE. [1857. while the sails and higher objects, in these cases, were almost completely cut away. When viewed through a telescope the sensible horizon of the lake presented a bil- lowy tumultuous appearance, fragments being incessantly detached from it and suspended in the air. The explanation of this effect is the same as that of the mirage of the desert, which may be found in almost any book on physics, and which so tantalized the French soldiers in Egypt. They often mistook this aerial inversion for the reflection from a lake, and on trial found hot and sterile sand at the place where they expected refreshing waters. The effect was shown by Monge, one of the learned men who accompanied the expedition, to be due to the total reflection of very oblique rays at the upper surface of the layer of rarefied air which was nearest to the heated earth. A sandy plain, in the early part of the day, is peculiarly favourable for the production of such effects ; and on the extensive flat strand which stretches between Mont St. Michel and the coast adjacent to Avranches in Normandy, I have noticed Mont Tom- beline reflected as if glass instead of sand surrounded it and formed its mirror. 1857.] CHAMOUNI AND THE MONTANVERT. 37 CHAMOUNI AND THE MONTANVERT. (5.) ON the evening of the 12th of July I reached Chamouni ; the weather was not quite clear, but it was promising ; white cumuli had floated round Mont Blanc during the day, but these diminished more and more, and the light of the setting sun was of that lingering rosy hue which bodes good weather. Two parallel beams of a purple tinge were drawn, by the shadows of the adjacent peaks, straight across the Glacier des Bossons, and the Glacier des Pelerins was also steeped for a time in the same purple light. Once when the surrounding red illumination was strong, the shadows of the Grands Mulcts falling upon the adjacent snow appeared of a vivid green. This green belonged to the class of subjective colours, or colours produced by contrast, about which a volume might be written. The eye received the impression of green, but the colour was not external to the eye. Place a red wafer on white paper, and look at it intently, it will be surrounded in a little time by a green fringe : move the wafer bodily away, and the entire space which it occupied upon the paper will appear green. A body may have its proper colour entirely masked in this way. Let a red wafer be attached to a piece of red glass, and from a moderately illuminated position let the sky be regarded through the glass ; the wafer will appear of a vivid green. If a strong beam of light be sent through a red glass and caused to fall upon a screen, which at the same time is moderately illuminated by a separate source of white light, an opaque body placed in the path of the beam will cast a green shadow upon the screen, which may be seen by seve- 38 COLOURED SHADOWS. [1857. ral hundred persons at once. If a blue glass be used, the shadow will be yellow, which is the complementary colour to blue. When we suddenly pass from open sunlight to a mode- rately illuminated room, it appears dark at first, but after a little time the eye regains the power of seeing objects dis- tinctly. Thus one effect-of light upon the eye is to render it less sensitive, and light of any particular colour falling upon the eye blunts its appreciation of that colour. Let us apply this to the shadow upon the screen. This shadow is moderately illuminated by a jet of white light ; but the space surrounding it is red, the effect of which upon the eye is to blind it in some degree to the perception of red. Hence, when the feeble white light of the shadow reaches the eye, the red component of this light is, as it were, abstracted from it, and the eye sees the residual colour, which is green. A similar explanation applies to the shadows of the Grands Millets. On the 13th of July I was joined by my friend Mr. Thomas Hirst, and on the 14th we examined together the end of the Mer de Glace. In former times the whole volume of the Arveiron escaped from beneath the ice at the end of the glacier, forming a fine arch at its place of issue. This year a fraction only of the water thus found egress ; the greater portion of it escaping laterally from the glacier at the summit of the rocks called Les Motets, down which it tumbled in a fine cascade. The vault at the end of the glacier was nevertheless respectable, and rather tempting to a traveller in search of information regard- ing the structure of the ice. Perhaps, however, Nature meant to give me a friendly warning at the outset, for, while speculating as to the wisdom of entering the cavern, it suddenly gave way, and, with a crash which rivalled thunder, the roof strewed itself in ruins upon the floor. Many years ago I had read with delight Coleridge's 1857.] SUNRISE AT CHAMOUNI. 39 poem entitled < Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni,' and to witness in all perfection the scene described by the poet, I waited at Chamouni a day longer than was otherwise necessary. On the morning of Wednesday, the 15th of July, I rose before the sun ; Mont Blanc and his wondrous staff of Aiguilles were without a cloud ; eastward the sky was of a pale orange which gradually shaded off to a kind of rosy violet, and this again blended by imperceptible degrees with the deep zenithal blue. The morning star was still shining to the right, and the moon also turned a pale face towards the rising day. The valley was full of music ; from the adjacent woods issued a gush of song, while the sound of the Arve formed a suitable bass to the shriller melody of the birds. The mountain rose for a time cold and grand, with no apparent stain upon his snows. Suddenly the sunbeams struck his crown and converted it into a boss of gold. For some time it remained the only gilded summit in view, holding communion with the dawn while all the others waited in silence. These, in the order of their heights, came afterwards, relaxing, as the sunbeams struck each in succession, into a blush and smile. On the same day we had our luggage transported to the Montanvert, while we clambered along the lateral moraine of the glacier to the Chapeau. The rocks alongside the glacier were beautifully scratched and polished, and 1 paid particular attention to them, for the purpose of furnishing myself with a key to ancient glacier action. The scene to my right was one of the most wonderful I had ever wit- nessed. Along the entire slope of the Glacier de Bois, the ice was cleft and riven into the most striking and fantastic forms. It had not yet suffered much from the wasting in- fluence of the summer weather, but its towers and minarets sprang from the general mass with clean chiselled outlines. Some stood erect, others leaned, while the white debris, strewn here and there over the glacier, showed where the 40 GLACIER DES BOIS. [1857. wintry edifices had fallen, breaking themselves to pieces, and grinding the masses on which they fell to powder. Some of them gave way during our inspection of the place, and shook the valley with the reverberated noise of their fall. I endeavoured to get near them, but failed ; the chasms at the margin of the glacier were too dangerous, and the stones resting upon the heights too loosely poised, to render persistence in the attempt excusable. We subsequently crossed the glacier to the Montanvert, and I formally took up my position there. The rooms of the hotel were separated from each other by wooden par- titions merely, and thus the noise of early risers in one room was plainly heard in the next. For the sake of quiet, therefore, I had my bed placed in the chdteau next door, a little octagonal building erected by some kind and sentimental Frenchman, and dedicated " a la Nature" My host at first demurred, thinking the place not "propre" but I insisted, and he acquiesced. True the stone floor was dark with moisture, and on the walls a glistening was here and there observable, which suggested rheumatism, and other penalties, but I had had no expe- rience of rheumatism, and trusted to the strength which mountain air and exercise were sure to give me, for power to resist its attacks. Moreover, to dispel some of the humidity, it was agreed that a large pine fire should be made there on necessary occasions. Though singularly favoured on the whole, still our resi- dence at the Montanvert was sufficiently long to give us specimens of all kinds of weather ; and thus my chateau derived an interest from the mutations of external nature. Sometimes no breath disturbed the perfect serenity of the night, and the moon, set in a black-blue sky, turned a face of almost supernatural brightness to the mountains, while in her absence the thick-strewn stars alone flashed and twinkled through the transparent air. Sometimes dull 1857.] QUARTERS AT THE MONTANVERT. 41 dank fog choked the valley, and heavy rain plashed upon the stones outside. On two or three occasions we were favoured by a thunderstorm, every peal of which broke into a hundred echos, while the seams of lightning which ran through the heavens produced a wonderful intermit- tence of gloom and glare. And as I sat within, musing on the experiences of the day, with my pine-logs crackling, and the ruddy fire-light gleaming over the walls, and lend- ing animation to the visages sketched upon them with charcoal by the guides, I felt that my position was in every way worthy of a student of nature. 42 A EIVEU OF ICE. [1857. THE MER DE GLACE. (6.) THE name " Mer de Glace " has doubtless led many who have never seen this glacier to a totally erroneous con- ception of its character. Misled probably by this term, a distinguished writer, for example, defines a glacier to be a sheet of ice spread out upon the slope of a mountain ; whereas the Mer de Glace is indeed a river, and not a sea of ice. But certain forms upon its surface, often noticed and described, and which I saw for the first time from the window of our hotel on the morning of the 16th of July, suggest at once the origin of the name. The glacier here has the appearance of a sea which, after it had been tossed by a storm, had sufficiently stiffened into rest. The ridges upon its surface accurately resemble waves in shape, and this singular appearance is produced in the following way. Some distance above the Montanvert opposite to the Echelets the glacier, in passing down an incline, is rent by deep fissures, between each two of which a ridge of ice intervenes. At first the edges of these ridges are sharp and angular, but they are soon sculptured off by the action of the sun. The bearing of the Mer de Glace being ap- proximately north and south, the sun at mid-day shines down the glacier, or rather very obliquely across it ; and the consequence is, that the fronts of the ridges, which look downward, remain in shadow all the day, while the backs of the ridges, which look up the glacier, meet the direct stroke of the solar rays. The ridges thus acted upon have their hindmost angles wasted off and converted 1857.1 FROZEN WAVES. 43 into slopes which represent the back of a wave, while the opposite . side of the ridges, which are protected from the sun, preserve their steepness, and represent the front of the wave. Fig. 5 will render my meaning at once plain. Fig. 5. The dotted lines are intended to represent three of the ridges into which the glacier is divided, with their inter- posed fissures ; the dots representing the boundaries of the ridges when the glacier is first broken. The parallel shading lines represent the direction of the sun's rays, which, falling obliquely upon the ridges, waste away the right-hand corners, and finally produce wave-like forms. We spent a day or two in making the general acquaint- ance of the glacier. On the 16th we ascended till we came to the rim of the Talefre basin, from which we had a good view of the glacier system of the region. The lami- nated structure of the ice was a point which particularly interested me ; and as I saw the exposed sections of the neve, counted the lines of stratification, and compared these with the lines upon the ends of the secondary gla- 44 GLACIER TABLES. [1857. ciers, I felt the absolute necessity either of connecting the veined structure with the strata by a continuous chain of observations, or of proving by ocular evidence that they were totally distinct from each other. I was well acquainted with the literature of the subject, but nothing that I had read was sufficient to prove what I required. Strictly speaking, nothing that had been written upon the subject rose above the domain of opinion, while I felt that without absolute demonstration the question would never be set at rest. On this day we saw some fine glacier tables ; flat masses of rock raised high upon columns of ice : Fig. 6 is a Fig. 6. sketch of one of the finest of them. Some of them fell from their pedestals while we were near them, and the clean ice-surfaces which they left behind sparkled with mi- nute stars as the small bubbles of air ruptured the film of water by which they were overspread. I also noticed that " petit bruit de crepitation," to which M. Agassiz alludes, and which he refers to the rupture of the ice by the ex- 1857.] FIRST SIGHT OF THE DIRT-BANDS. 45 pansion of the air-bubbles contained within it. When I first read Agassiz's account of it, I thought it might be produced by the rupture of the minute air-bubbles which incessantly escape from the glacier. This, doubtless, pro- duces an effect, but there is something in the character of the sound to be referred, I think, to a less obvious cause, which I shall notice further on. At six P. M. this day I reached the Montanvert ; and the same evening, wrapping my plaid around me, I wan- dered up towards Charmoz, and from its heights observed, as they had been observed fifteen years previously by Pro- fessor Forbes, the dirt-bands of the Mer de Glace. They were different from any I had previously seen, and I felt a strong desire to trace them to their origin. Content, however, with the performance of the day, and feeling healthily tired by it, I lay down upon the bilberry bushes and fell asleep. It was dark when I awoke, and I expe- rienced some difficulty and risk in getting down from the petty eminence referred to. The illumination of the glacier, as remarked by Pro- fessor Forbes, has great influence iipon the appearance of the bands ; they are best seen in a subdued light and I think for the following reasons : The dirt-bands are seen simply because they send less light to the eye than the cleaner portions of the glacier which lie between them ; two surfaces, differently illumi- nated, are presented to the eye, and it is found that this difference is more observable when the light is that of evening than when it is that of noon. It is only within certain limits that the eye is able to perceive differences of intensity in different lights ; be- yond a certain intensity, if I may use the expression, light ceases to be light, and becomes mere pain. The naked eye can detect no difference in brightness between the elec- 46 BANDS SEEN BEST BY TWILIGHT. [1857. trie light and the lime light, although, when we come to strict measurement, the former may possess many times the intensity of the latter. It follows from this that we might reduce the ordinary electric light to a fraction of its intensity, without any perceptible change of brightness to the naked eye which looks at it. But if we reduce the lime light in the same proportion the effect would be very different. This light lies much nearer to the limit at which the eye can appreciate differences of brightness, and its reduction might bring it quite within this limit, and make it sensibly dimmer than before. Hence we see that, when two sources of intense light are presented to the eye, by reducing both the lights in the same propor- tion, the difference between them may become more per- ceptible. Now the dirt-bands and the spaces between them re- semble, in some measure, the two lights above mentioned. By the full glare of noon both are so strongly illuminated that the difference which the eye perceives is very small ; as the evening advances the light of both is lowered in the same proportion, but the differential effect upon the eye is thereby augmented, and the bands are consequently more clearly seen. qo On Friday, the 17th of July, we commenced our mea- surements. Through the kindness of Sir Roderick Mur- chison, I found myself in the possession of an excellent five-inch theodolite, an instrument with the use of which both my friend Hirst and myself were perfectly familiar. 1857.] THE CLEFT STATION. 47 We worked in concert for a few days to familiarize our assistant with the mode of proceeding, but afterwards it was my custom to simply determine the position where a measurement was to be made, and to leave the execution of it entirely to Mr. Hirst and our guide. On the 20th of July I made a long excursion up the glacier, examining the moraines, the crevasses, the struc- ture, the moulins, and the disintegration of the s'urface. I was accompanied by a boy named Edouard Balmat,* and found him .so good an iceman that I was induced to take him with me on the following day also. Looking upwards from the Montanvert to the left of the Aiguille de Charmoz, a singular gap is observed in the rocky mountain wall, in the centre of which stands a de- tached column of granite. Both cleft and pillar are shown in the frontispiece, to the right. The eminence to the left of this gap is signalised by Professor Forbes as one of the best stations from which to view the Mer de Glace, and this point, which I shall refer to hereafter as the Cleft Station, it was now my desire to attain. From the Montanvert side a steep gully leads to the cleft ; up this couloir we proposed to try the ascent. At a consid- erable height above the Mer de Glace, and closely hug- ging the base of the Aiguille de Charmoz, is the small Glacier de Tendue, shown in the frontispiece, and from which a steep slope stretches down to the Mer de Glace. This Tendue is the most talkative glacier I have ever known ; the clatter of the small stones which fall from it is incessant. Huge masses of granite also frequently fall upon the glacier from the cliffs above it, and, being slowly borne downwards by the moving ice, are at length seen toppling above the terminal face of the glacier. The ice which supports them being gradually melted, they are at * "Le petit Balmat" my host always called him. 48 ROUGH ASCENT. [1857. length undermined, and sent bounding down the slope with peal and rattle, according as the masses among which they move are large or small. The space beneath the gla- cier is cumbered with blocks thus sent down; some of them of enormous size. The danger arising from this intermittent cannonade, though in reality small, has caused the guides to swerve from the path which formerly led across the slope to the promontory of Trelaporte. I say " small," because, even should a rock choose the precise moment at which a tra- veller is passing to leap down, the boulders at hand are so large and so capable of bearing a shock that the least presence of mind would be sufficient to place him in safety. But presence of mind is not to be calculated on under such circumstances, and hence the guides were right to abandon the path. Reaching the mouth of our gully after a rough ascent, we took to the snow, instead of climbing the adjacent rocks. It was moist and soft, in fact in a condition alto- gether favorable for the "regelation" of its granules. As the foot pressed upon it the particles became cemented together. A portion of the pressure was transmitted lat- erally, which produced attachments beyond the boundary of the foot; thus as the latter sank, it pressed upon a surface which became continually wider and more rigid, and at length sufficiently strong to bear the entire weight of the body ; the pressed snow formed in fact a virtual camel's foot, which soon placed a limit to the sinking. It is this same principle of regelation which enables men to cross snow bridges in safety. By gentle cautious pres- sure the loose granules of the substance are cemented into a continuous mass, all sudden shocks which might cause the frozen surfaces to snap asunder being avoided. In this way an arch of snow fifteen or twenty inches in 1857.] CHAMOIS ON THE MOUNTAINS. 49 thickness may be rendered so firm that a man will cross it, although it may span a chasm one hundred feet in depth. As we ascended, the incline became very steep, and once or twice we diverged from the snow to the adjacent rocks ; these were disintegrated, and the slightest dis- turbance was sufficient to bring them down ; some fell, and from one of them I found it a little difficult to es- cape ; for it grazed my leg, inflicting a slight wound as it passed. Just before reaching the cleft at which we aimed, the snow for a short distance was exceedingly steep, but we surmounted it ; and I sat for a time beside the granite pillar, pleased to find that I could permit my legs to dan- gle over a precipice without prejudice to my head. While we remained here a chamois made its appear- ance upon the rocks above us. Deeming itself too near, it climbed higher, and then turned round to watch us. It was soon joined by a second, and both formed a very pretty picture : their attitudes frequently changed, but they were always graceful ; with head erect and horns curved back, a light limb thrown forward upon a ledge of rock, looking towards us with wild and earnest gaze, each seemed a type of freedom and agility. Turn- ing now to the left, we attacked the granite tower, from which we purposed to scan the glacier, and were soon upon its* top. My companion was greatly pleased, he was " tres-con tent " to have reached the place, he felt assured that many old guides would have retreated from that ugly gully, with its shifting shingle and debris, and his elation reached its climax in. the declaration that, if I resolved to ascend Mont Blanc without a guide, he was willing to accompany me. From the position which we had attained, the prospect was exceedingly fine, both of the glaciers and of the mountains. Beside us was the Aiguille de Charmoz, 4 50 SCENE FEOM THE STATION. [1857. piercing with its spikes of granite the clear air. To my mind it is one of the finest of the Aiguilles, noble in mass, with its summits singularly cleft and splintered. In some atmospheric colourings it has the exact appearance of a mountain of cast copper, and the manner in which some of its highest pinnacles are bent, suggesting the idea of ductility, gives strength to the illusion that the mass is metallic. At the opposite side of the glacier was the Aiguille Yerte, with a' cloud poised upon its point : it has long been the ambition of climbers to scale this peak, and on this day it was attempted by a young French count with a long retinue of guides. He had not fair play, for before we quitted our position we heard the rumble of thunder upon the mountain, which indicated the presence of a foe more terrible than the avalanches themselves. Higher to the right, and also at the opposite side of the glacier, rose the Aiguille du Moine ; and beyond was the basin of the Tal^fre, the ice cascade issuing from which appeared, from our position, like the foam of a waterfall. Then came the Aiguille de Le'chaud, the Petite Jorasse, the Grande Jorasse, and the Mont Tacul ; all of which form a cradle for the Glacier de Lechaud. Mont Mallet, the Pe*riades, and the Aiguille Noire, came next, and then the singular obelisk of the Aiguille du Gdant, from which a serrated edge of cliff descends to the summit of the " Col." Over the slopes of the Col du Ge*ant was spread a cov- erlet of shining snow, at some places apparently as smooth as polished marble, at others broken so as to form preci- pices, on the pale blue faces of which the horizontal lines of bedding were beautifully drawn. As the eye approaches the line which stretches from the Rognon to the Aiguille Noire, the repose of the neve becomes more and more dis- turbed. Yast chasms are formed, which however are still merely indicative of the trouble in advance. If the gla- cier were lifted off, we should probably see that the line 1857.] SERACS OF THE COL DU GEANT. 51 just referred to would lie along the summit of a steep gorge ; over this summit the glacier is pushed, and has its back periodically broken, thus forming vast transverse ridges which follow each other in succession down the slope. At the summit these ridges are often cleft by fissures transverse to them, thus forming detached towers of ice of the most picturesque and imposing character.* These towers often fall ; and while some are caught upon the platforms of the cascade, others struggle with the slow energy of a behemoth through the de*bris which opposes them, reach the edges of the precipices which rise in suc- cession along the fall, leap over, and, amid ice-smoke and thunder-peals, fight their way downwards. A great number of secondary glaciers were in sight, hanging on the steep slopes of the mountains, and from them streams sped downwards, falling over the rocks, and filling the valley with a low rich music. In front of me, for example, was the Glacier du Moine, and I could not help feeling, as I looked at it, that the arguments drawn from the deportment of such glaciers against the " sliding theory," and which are still repeated in works upon the Alps, militate just as strongly against the " viscous the- ory." " How," demands the antagonist of the sliding theory, " can a secondary glacier exist upon so steep a slope ? why does it not slide down as an avalanche ? " "But how," the person addressed may retort, " can a mass which you assume to be viscous exist under similar conditions ? If it be viscous, what prevents it from roll- ing down ? " The sliding theory assumes the lubrication of the bed of the glacier, but on this cold height the quantity melted is too small to lubricate the bed, and * To such towers the name Seracs is applied. In the chalets of Savoy, after the richer curd has been precipitated by rennet, a stronger acid is used to throw down what remains ; an inferior kind of cheese called /Seme is thus formed, the shape and colour of which have suggested the application of the term to the cubical masses of ice. 52 GLACIER MOTION. [1857. hence the slow motion of these glaciers. Thus a sliding- theory man might reason, and, if the external deportment of secondary glaciers were to decide the question, De Saussure might perhaps have the best of the argument. And with regard to the current idea, originated by M. de Charpentier, and adopted by Professor Forbes, that if a glacier slides it must slide as an avalanche, it may be simply retorted that, in part, it does so ; but if it be as- serted that an accelerated motion is the necessary motion of an avalanche, the statement needs qualification. An avalanche on passing through a rough couloir soon attains an uniform velocity, its motion being accelerated only up to the point when the sum of the resistances acting upon it is equal to the force drawing it downwards. These resistances are furnished by the numberless asperi- ties which the mass encounters, and which incessantly check its descent, and render an accumulation of motion impossible. The motion of a man walking down stairs may be on the whole uniform, but it is. really made up of an aggregate of small motions, each of which is acceler- ated ; and it is easy to conceive how a glacier moving over an uneven bed, when released from one opposing obstacle, will be checked by another, and its motion thus rendered sensibly uniform. From the Aiguille du Ge*ant and Les Periades a glacier descended, which was separated by the promontory of La Noire from the glacier proceeding from the Col du Gant. A small moraine was formed between them, which is marked a upon the diagram, Fig. 7. The great mass of the glacier descending from the Col du G6ant came next, and this was bounded on the side nearest to Trelaporte by a small moraine 6, the origin of which I could not see, its upper portion being shut out by a mountain promontory. Between the moraine b and the actual side of the valley was another little glacier, derived from some of the lateral tribu- 1857.] MORAINES. 53 taries. It was. however, between the moraines a and b that the great mass of the Glacier du Ge*ant really lay. At the Fig. 7. promontory of the Tacul the lateral moraines of the gla- cier des P^riades and of the Glacier de Lechaud united to 54 TRIBUTARIES OF THE MER DE GLACE. [1857. form the medial moraine c of the Mer de Glace. Car- rying the eye across the Ldchaud, we had the moraine d formed by the union of the lateral moraines of the Lechaud and Talefre ; further to the left was the moraine e, which came from the Jar din, and beyond it was the second lateral moraine of the Talefre. The Mer de Glace is formed by the confluence of the whole of the glaciers here named ; being forced at Trelaporte through a passage, the width of which appears considerably less than that of the single tributary, the Glacier du Geant. In the ice near Trelaporte the blue veins of the glacier are beautifully shown ; but they vary in distinctness accord- ing to the manner in which they are looked at. When regarded obliquely their colour is not so pronounced as when the vision plunges deeply into them. The weathered ice of the surface near Trelaporte could be cloven with great facility ; I could with ease obtain plates of it a quarter of an inch thick, and possessing two square feet of surface. On the 28th of July I followed the veins several times from side to side across the Geant portion of the Mer de Glace ; starting from one side, and walking along the veins, my route was directed obliquely downwards towards the axis of the tributary. At the axis I was forced to turn, in order to keep along the veins, and now ascended along a line which formed nearly the same angle with the axis at the other side. Thus the veins led me as it were along the two sides of a triangle, the vertex of which was near the centre of the glacier. The vertex was, however, in reality rounded off, and the figure rather resembled a hyperbola, which tended to coincidence with its asymp- totes. This observation corroborates those of Professor Forbes with regard to the position of the veins, and, like him, I found that at the centre the veining, whose normal direction would be transverse to the glacier, was contorted and confused. 1857.] WASTING OF ICE. 55 Near the side of the Glacier du Gant, above the pro- montory of Trelaporte, the ice is rent in a remarkable manner. Looking upwards from the lower portions of the glacier, a series of vertical walls, rising apparently one above the other, face the observer. I clambered up among these singular terraces, and now recognise, both from my sketch and memory, that their peculiar forms are due to the same action as that which has given their shape to the " billows " of the Mer de Glace. A series of profound crevasses is first formed. The Glacier du G6ant deviates 14 from the meridian line, and hence the sun shines nearly down it during the middle portion of each day. The backs of the ridges between the crevasses are thus rounded off, one boundary of each fissure isdestroyed, or at least becomes a mere steep declivity, while the other boundary being shaded from the sun preserves its ver- ticality ; and thus a very curious series of precipices is formed. Through all this dislocation, the little moraine on which I have placed the letter b in the sketch maintains its right to existence, and under it the laminated struc- ture of this portion of the glacier appears to reach its most perfect development. The moraine was generally a mere dirt track, but one or two immense blocks of granite were perched upon it. I examined the ice under- neath one of these, being desirous of seeing whether the pressure resulting from its enormous weight would pro- duce a veining, but the result was not satisfactory. Veins were certainly to be seen in directions different from the normal ones, but whether they were due to the bending of the latter, or were directly owing to the pressure of the block, I could not say. The sides of a stream which had cut a deep gorge in the clean ice of the Glacier du Geant afforded a fine opportunity of observing the structure. It was very remarkable, highly 56 GROOVES ON THE SURFACE. [1857. significant indeed in a theoretic point of view. Two long anft remarkably deep blue veins traversed the bottom of the stream, and, bending upwards at a place where the rivulet curved, drew themselves like a pair of parallel lines upon the clean white ice. But the general structure was of a totally different character ; it did not consist of long bars, but approximated to the lenticular form, and was, moreover, of a washy paleness, which scarcely exceeded in depth of colouring the whitish ice around. To the investigator of the structure nothing can be finer than the appearance of the glacier from one of the ice terraces cut in the Glacier du Geant by its passage round Trelaporte. As far as the vision extended the dirt upon the surface of the ice was arranged in striae. These striae were not always straight lines, nor were they unbroken curves. Within slight limits the various parts into which a glacier is cut up by its crevasses enjoy a kind of inde- pendent motion. The grooves, for example, on two ridges which have been separated by a small fissure, may one day have their striae perfect continuations of each other, but in a short time this identity of direction may be destroyed by a difference of motion between the ridges. Thus it is that the grooves upon the surface above Trela- porte are bent hither and thither, a crack or seam always marking the point where their continuity is ruptured. This bending occurs, however, within limits sufficiently small to enable the striae to preserve the same general direction. My attention had often been attracted this day by pro- jecting masses of what at first appeared to be pure white snow, rising in seams above the general surface of the glacier. On examination, however, I found them to be compact ice, filled with innumerable air-cells, and so resistant as to maintain itself in some places at a height of four feet above the general level. When amongst the 1857.] SEAMS OF WHITE ICE. 57 ridges they appeared discontinuous and confused, being scattered apparently at random over the glacier ; but when viewed from a sufficient distance, the detached parts showed themselves to belong to a system of white seams which swept quite across the Glacier du Ge*ant, in a direc- tion concentric with the structure. Unable to account for these singular seams, I climbed up among the tributary glaciers on the Rognon side of the Glacier du Gdant, and remained there until the sun sank behind the neighbour- ing peaks, and the fading light warned me that it was time to return. (8.) Early on the following day I was again upon the ice. I first confined myself to the right side of the Glacier du Ge*ant, and found that the veins of white ice which I had noticed on the previous day were exclusively confined to this glacier, or to the space between the moraines a and b (Fig. 7), bending up so that the moraine a between the Glacier du Ge*ant and the Glacier des Pe'riades was tangent to them. At a good distance up the glacier I encountered a considerable stream rushing across it almost from side to side. I followed the rivulet, examin- ing the sections which it exposed. At a certain point three other streams united, and formed at their place of confluence a small green lake. From this a rivulet rushed, which was joined by the stream whose track I had pursued, and at this place of junction a second green lake was formed, from which flowed a stream equal in volume to the sum of all the tributaries. It entered a crevasse, and took the bottom of the fissure for its bed. Standing at the entrance of the chasm, a low muffled thunder 58 A LAKE SET FREE. [1857. resounding through the valley attracted my attention. I followed the crevasse, which deepened and narrowed, and, by the blue light of the ice, could see the stream gam- bolling along its bottom, and flashing as it jumped o^er the ledges which it encountered in its way. The fissure at length came to an end : placing a foot on each side of it, and withholding the stronger light from my eyes, I looked down between its shining walls, and saw the stream plunge into a shaft which carried it to the bottom of the glacier. Slowly, and in zigzag fashion, as the crevasses demanded, I continued to ascend, sometimes climbing vast humps of ice from which good views of the surrounding glacier were obtained ; sometimes hidden in the hollows between the humps, in which also green glacier tarns were often formed, very lonely and very beautiful. While standing beside one of these, and watching the moving clouds which it faithfully mirrored, I heard the sound of what appeared to be a descending avalanche, but the time of its continuance surprised me. Looking through my opera-glass in the direction of the sound, I saw issuing from the end of a secondary glacier on the Tacul side a tor- rent of what appeared to me to be stones and mud. I could see the stones and finer debris jumping down the declivities, and shaping themselves into singular cascades. The noise continued for a quarter of an hour, after which the torrent rapidly diminished, until, at length, the ordi- nary little stream due to the melting of the glacier alone remained. A subglacial lake had burst its boundary, and carried along with it in its rush downwards the debris which it met with in its course. In some places I found the crevasses difficult, the ice being split in a very singular manner. Vast plates of it not more than a foot in thickness were sometimes de- tached from the sides of the crevasses, and stood alone. 1857.] IMPRESSIVE SCENE. 59 I was now approaching the base of the seracs, and the glacier around me still retained a portion of the turbu- lence of the cascade. I halted at times amid the ruin and confusion, and examined with my glass the cascade itself. It was a wild and wonderful scene, suggesting throes of spasmodic energy, though, in reality, all its dislocation had been slowly and gradually produced. True, the stratified blocks which here and there cumbered the terraces sug- gested debacles, but these were local and partial, and did not affect the general question. There is scarcely a case of geological disturbance which could not be matched with its analogue upon the glaciers, contortions, faults, fis- sures, joints, and dislocations, but in the case of the ice we can prove the effects to be due to slowly-acting causes ; how reasonable is it then to ascribe to the opera- tion of similar causes, which have had an incomparably longer time to work, many geological effects which at first sight might suggest sudden convulsion ! Wandering slowly upwards, successive points of attrac- tion drawing me almost unconsciously on, I found myself as the day was declining deep in the entanglements of the ice. A shower commenced, and a splendid rainbow threw an oblique arch across the glacier. I was quite alone ; the scene was exceedingly impressive, and the possibility of difficulties on which I had not calculated interven- ing between me and the lower glacier, gave a tinge of anxiety to my position. I turned towards home ; crossed some bosses of ice and rounded others ; I followed the tracks of streams which were very irregular on this portion of the glacier, bending hither and thither, rushing through deep-cut channels, falling in cascades and expanding here and there to deep green lakes ; they often plunged into the depths of the ice, flowed under it with hollow gurgle, and reappeared at some distant point. I threaded my way cautiously amid systems of crevasses, scattering with my 60 CHAMOUNI RULES. [1857. axe, to secure a footing, the rotten ice of the sharper crests, which fell with a ringing sound into the chasms at either side. Strange subglacial noises were sometimes heard, as if caverns existed underneath, into which blocks of ice fell at intervals, transmitting the shock of their fall with a dull boom to the surface of the glacier. By the steady surmounting of difficulties one after another, I at length placed them all behind me, and afterwards hastened swiftly along the glacier to my mountain home. On the 30th, incessant rain confined us to in-door work : on the 31st, we determined the velocity with which the glacier is forced through the entrance of the trunk valley at Trelaporte, and also the motion of the Grand Moulin. We also determined both the velocity and the width of the Glacier du Ge'ant. The 1st of August was spent by me at the cascade of the Talefre, examining the structure, crumpling, and scaling off of the ice. Finding that the rules at Chamouni put an unpleasant limit to my demands on my guide Simond, I visited the Guide Chef on the 2nd of August, and explained to him the object of my expedi- tion, pointing out the inconvenience which a rigid appli- cation of the rules made for tourists would impose upon me. He had then the good sense to acknowledge the reasonableness of my remarks, and to grant me the liberty I requested. The 3rd of August was employed in deter- mining the velocity and width of the Glacier de Le'chaud, and in observations on the lamination of the glacier. 1857.] THE JARDIN. 61 ' THE JARDIN. (9.) ON the 4th of August, with a view of commencing a series of observations on the inclinations of the Mer de Glace and its tributaries, we had our theodolite transported to the Jar din, which, as is well known, lies like an island in the middle of the Glacier du Talefre. We reached the place by the usual route, and found some tourists reposing on the soft green sward which covers the lower portion, and to which, and the flowers which spangle it, the place owes its name. Towards the summit of the Jardin, a rock jut- ted forward, apparently the very apex of the place, or at least hiding by its prominence everything that might exist behind it ; leaving our guide with the instrument, we aimed at this, and soon left the grass and flowers behind us. Stepping amid broken fragments of rock, along slopes of granite, with fat felspar crystals which gave the boots a hold, and crossing at intervals patches of snow, which continued still to challenge the summer heat, I at ength found myself upon the peak referred to ; and, al- though it was not the highest, the unimpeded view which t commanded induced me to get astride it. The Jardin was completely encircled by the ice of the glacier, and ;his was held in a mountain basin, which was bounded all iround by a grand and cliffy rim. The outline of the dark brown crags a deeply serrated and irregular line was forcibly drawn against the blue heaven, and still more strongly against some white and fleecy clouds which lay here and there behind it ; while detached spears and pil- lars of rock, sculptured by frost and lightning, stood like a kind of defaced statuary along the ridge. All round 62 A KESERVOIR OF ICE. [1857. the basin the snow reared itself like a buttress against the precipitous cliffs, being streaked and fluted by the descent of blocks from the siimmits. This mighty tub is the col- lector of one of the tributaries of the Mer de Glace. Ac- cording to Professor Forbes, its greatest diameter is 4,200 yards, and out of it the half-formed ice is squeezed through a precipitous gorge about 700 yards wide, forming there the ice cascade of the Talefre. Bounded on one side by the Grande Jorasse, and on the other by Mont Mallet, the principal tributary of the Glacier de Ldchaud lay white and pure upon the mountain slope. Round further to the right we had the vast plateau whence the Glacier du G^ant is fed, fenced on the left by the Aiguille du Geant and the Aiguille Noire, and on the right by the Monts Maudits and Mont Blanc. The scene was a truly majestic one. The mighty Aiguilles piercing the sea of air, the soft white clouds floating here and there behind them ; the shining snow with its striped faults and precipices ; the deep blue firmament overhead ; the peals of avalanches and the sound of water ; all conspired to render the scene glori- ous, and our enjoyment of it deep. A voice from above hailed me as I moved from my perch ; it was my friend, who had found a lodgment upon the edge of a rock which was quite detached from the Jardin, being the first to lift its head in opposition to the descending nev. Making a de*tour round a steep concave slope of the glacier, I reached the flat summit of the rorck. The end of a ridge of ice abutted against it, which was split .and bent by the pressure so as to form a kind of arch. I cut steps in the ice, and ascended until I got beneath the azure roof. Innumerable little rills of pellucid water descended from it. Some came straight down, clear for a time, and apparently motionless, rapidly tapering at first, and more slowly afterwards, until, at the point of maximum contraction, they resolved themselves 1857.] MORAINES OF THE TALEFRE. 63 into strings of liquid pearls which pattered against the ice floor underneath. Others again, owing to the directions of the little streamlets of which they were constituted, formed spiral figures of great beauty : one liquid vein wound itself round another, forming a spiral protuberance, and owing to the centrifugal motion thus imparted, the vein, at its place of rupture, scattered itself laterally in little liquid spherules.* Even at this great elevation the structure of the ice was fairly developed, not with the sharpness to be observed lower down, but still perfectly de- ided. Blue bands crossed the ridge of ice to which I have referred, at right angles to the direction of the pressure. I descended, and found my friend beneath an over- hanging rock. Immediately afterwards a peal like that of thunder shook the air, and right in front of us an ava- lanche darted down the brown cliffs, then along a steep slope of snow which reared itself against the mountain wall, carrying with it the debris of the rocks over which it passed, until it finally lay a mass of sullied rubbish at the base of the incline : the whole surface of the Taiefre is thus soiled. Another peal was heard immediately after- wards, but the avalanche which caused it was hidden from us by a rocky promontory. From this same pro- montory the greater portion of the medial moraine which descends the cascade of the Taiefre is derived, forming at first a gracefully winding curve, and afterwards stretch- ing straight to the summit of the fall. In the chasms of the cascade its boulders are engulfed, but the lost moraine is restored below the fall, as if disgorged by the ice which had swallowed it. From the extremity of the Jardin it- self a mere driblet of a moraine proceeds, running paral- lel to the former, and like it disappearing at the summit of the cascade. * The recent hydraulic researches of Professor Magnus furnish some beautiful illustrations of this action. 64 AMONG THE CREVASSES. [1857. We afterwards descended towards the cascade, but long before this is attained the most experienced iceman would find himself in difficulty. Transverse crevasses are formed, which follow each other so speedily as to Ieav6 between them mere narrow ridges of ice, along which we moved cautiously, jumping the adjacent fissures, or getting round them, as the case demanded. As we approached the jaws of the gorge, the ridges dwindled to mere plates and wedges, which being bent and broken by the lateral pres- sure, added to the confusion, and warned us not to ad- t vance. The position was in some measure an exciting one. Our guide had never been here before ; we were far from the beaten track, and the riven glacier wore an as- pect of treacherous hostility. As at the base of the seracs, a subterranean noise sometimes announced the falling of ice-blocks into hollows underneath, the existence of which the resonant concussion of the fallen mass alone revealed. There was thus a dash of awe mingled with our thoughts ; a stirring up of the feelings which troubled the coolness of the intellect. We finally swerved to the right, and by a process the reverse of straightforward reached the Cou- vercle. Nightfall found us at the threshold of our hotel. (10.) On the 5th we were engaged for some time in an impor- tant measurement of the Tacul. We afterwards ascended towards the sSracs, and determined the inclinations of the Glacier du Gant downwards. Dense cloud-masses gath- ered round the points of the Aiguilles, and the thunder bellowed at intervals from the summit of Mont Blanc. As we descended the Mer de Glace, the valley in front of us was filled with a cloud of pitchy darkness. Suddenly from J857] ROUND HAILSTONES. 65 side to side this field of gloom was riven by a bar of light- ning of intolerable splendour ; it was followed by a peal of commensurate grandeur, the echoes of which leaped from cliff to cliff long after the first sound had died away. The discharge seemed to unlock the clouds above us, for they showered their liquid spheres down upon us with a mo- mentum like that of swan-shot : all the way home we were battered by this pellet-like rain. On the 6th, the rain con- tinued with scarcely any pause ; on the 7th, I was engaged all day upon the Glacier du Gdant ; on the morning of the 8th, heavy hail had fallen there, the stones being perfect spheres ; the rounded rain-drops had solidified during their descent without sensible change of form. When this hail was squeezed together, it exactly resembled a mass of oolitic limestone which I had picked up in 1853 near Blankenburg in the Harz. Mr. Hirst and myself were en- gaged together this day taking the inclinations : he struck his theodolite at the Angle, and went home accompanied by Simond, and, the evening being extremely serene, I pur- sued my way down the centre of the glacier towards the Echelets. The crevasses as I advanced became more deep and frequent, the ridges of ice between them becoming gradually narrower. They were very fine, their down- ward faces being clear cut, perfectly vertical, and in many cases beautifully veined. Vast plates of ice moreover often stood out midway between the walls of the chasms, as if cloven from the glacier and afterwards set on edge. The place was certainly one calculated to test the skill and nerve of an iceman ; and as the day drooped, and the shadow in the valley deepened, a feeling approach- ing to awe took possession of me. My route was an exag- gerated zigzag ; right and left amid the chasms wherever a hope of progress opened ; and here I made the experience which I have often repeated since, and laid to heart as regards intellectual work also, that enormous difficulties 5 66 A DANGEROUS LEAP. [1857- may be overcome when they are attacked in earnest. Sometimes I found myself so hedged in by fissures that escape seemed absolutely impossible ; but close and resolute examination so often revealed a means of exit, that I felt in all its force the brave verity of the remark of Mirabeau, that the word " impossible " is a mere blockhead of a word. It finally became necessary to reach the shore, but I found this a work of extreme difficulty. At length, however, it be- came pretty evident that, if I could cross a certain crevasse, my retreat would be secured. The width of the fissure seemed to be fairly within jumping distance, and if I could have calculated on a safe purchase for my foot, I should have thought little of the spring ; but the ice on the edge from which I was to leap was loose and insecure, and hence a kind of nervous thrill shot through me as I made the bound. The opposite side was fairly reached, but an invo- luntary tremor shook me all over after I felt myself secure. I reached the edge of the glacier without further serious difficulty, and soon after found myself steeped in the crea- ture comforts of our hotel. On Monday, August 10th, I had the great pleasure of being joined by my friend Huxley ; and though the weather was very unpromising, we started together up the glacier, he being desirous to learn something of its general features, and, if possible, to reach the Jardiii. We reached the Couvercle, and squeezed ourselves through the Egralets ; but here the rain whizzed past us, and dense fog settled upon the cascade of the Talefre, obscuring all its parts. We met Mr. Galton, the African traveller, returning from an attempt upon the Jardin ; and learning that his guides had lost their way in the fog, we deemed it prudent to return. The foregoing brief notes will have informed the reader that at the period of Mr. Huxley's arrival I was not with- out due training upon the ice ; I may also remark, that 1857.] PREPARATIONS FOR A CLIMB. 67 on the 25th of July I reached the summit of the Col du Ge*ant, accompanied by the boy Balmat, and returned to the Montanvert on the same day. My health was perfect, and incessant practice had taught me the art of dealing with the difficulties of the ice. From the time of my arrival at the Montanvert, the thought of ascending Mont Blanc, and thus expanding my knowledge of the glaciers, had often occurred to me, and I think I was justified in feeling that the discipline which both my friend Hirst and myself had undergone ought to enable us to accom- plish the journey in a much more modest way than ordi- nary. I thought a single guide sufficient for this purpose, and I was strengthened in this opinion by the fact that Simond, who was a man of the strictest prudence, and who at first declared four guides to be necessary, had lowered his demand first to two, and was now evidently willing to try the ascent with us alone. On mentioning the thing to Mr. Huxley he at once re- solved to accompany us. On the llth of August the weather was exceedingly fine, though the snow which had fallen during the previous days lay thick upon the glacier. At noon we were all together at the Tacul, and the subject of attempting Mont Blanc was mooted and discussed. My opinion was that it would be better to wait until the fresh snow which loaded the mountain had disappeared ; but the weather was so exquisite that my friends thought it best to take advantage of it. We accordingly entered into an agreement with our guide, and immediately descended to make preparations for commencing the expedition on the following morning. 68 SCENE FROM THE CHARMOZ. [1857. FIRST ASCENT OF MONT BLANC, 1857. (11.) ON Wednesday, the 12th of August, we rose early, after a very brief rest on my part. Simond had proposed to go down to Chamouni, and commence the ascent in the usual way, but we preferred crossing the mountains from the Montan- vert, straight to the Glacier des Bossons. At eight o'clock we started, accompanied by two porters who were to carry our provisions to the Grands Mulets. Slowly and silently we climbed the hill-side towards Charmoz. We soon passed the limits of grass and rhododendrons, and reached the slabs -of gneiss which overspread the summit of the ridge, lying one upon the other like coin upon the table of a money-changer. From the highest point I turned to have a last look at the Mer de Glace ; and through a pair of very dark spectacles I could see with perfect distinct- ness the looped dirt-bands of the glacier, which to the naked eye are scarcely discernible except by twilight. Flanking our track to the left rose a series of mighty Aiguilles ; the Aiguille de Charmoz, with its bent and rifted pinnacles ; the Aiguille du Grepon, the Aiguille de Blaitiere, the Aiguille du Midi, all piercing the heavens with their sharp pyramidal summits. Far in front of us rose the grand snow-cone of the D6me du Goute, while, through a forest of dark pines which gathered like a cloud at the foot of the mountain, gleamed the white minarets of the Glacier des Bossons. Below us lay the Valley of Chamouni, beyond which were the Brevent and the chain of the Aiguilles Rouges ; behind us was the granite obelisk of the Aiguille du Dru, while close at hand science found a corporeal form in a pyramid of stones 1857.] PASSAGE TO THE PIERRE L'ECHELLE. 69 used as a trigonometrical station by Professor Forbes. Sound is known to travel better up hill than down, be- cause the pulses transmitted from a denser medium to a rarer suffer less loss of intensity than when the transmis- sion is in the opposite direction ; and now the mellow voice of the Arve came swinging upwards from the heavier air of the valley to the lighter air of the hills in rich deep cadences. The way for a time was excessively rough, our route being overspread with the fragments of peaks which had once reared themselves to our left, but which frost and lightning had shaken to pieces, and poured in granite avalanches down the mountain. We were sometimes among huge angular boulders, and sometimes amid lighter shingle, which gave way at every step, thus forcing us to shift our footing incessantly. Escaping from these, we crossed the succession of secondary glaciers which lie at the feet of the Aiguilles, and, having secured firewood, found ourselves after some hours of hard work at the Pierre I'Echelle. Here we were furnished with leggings of coarse woollen cloth to keep out the snow ; they were tied under the knees and quite tightly again over the insteps, so that the legs were effectually protected. We had some refreshment, possessed ourselves of the ladder, and entered upon the glacier. The ice was excessively fissured : we crossed crevasses and crept round slippery ridges, cutting steps in the ice wherever climbing was necessary. This rendered our pro- gress very slow. Once, with the intention of lending a helping hand, I stepped forward upon a block of granite which happened to be poised like a rocking stone upon the ice, though I did not know it ; it treacherously turned under me ; I fell, but my hands were in instant requisition, and I escaped with a bruise, from which, however, the blood oozed angrily. We found the ladder necessary, in 70 LADDER LEFT BEHIND. [1857. crossing some of the chasms, the iron spikes at its end being firmly driven into the ice at one side, while the other end rested on the opposite side of the fissure. The middle portion of the glacier was not difficult. Mounds of ice rose beside us right and left, which were sometimes split into high towers and gaunt-looking pyramids, while the space between was unbroken. Twenty minutes' walk- ing brought us again to a fissured portion of the glacier, and here our porter left the ladder on the ice behind him. For some time I was not aware of this, but we were soon fronted by a chasm to pass which we were in consequence compelled to make a long and dangerous circuit amid crests of crumbling ice. This accomplished, we hoped that no repetition of the process would occur, but we speedily came to a second fissure, where it was neces- sary to step from a projecting end of ice to a mass of soft snow which overhung the opposite side. Simond could reach this snow with his long-handled axe ; he beat it down to give it rigidity, but it was exceedingly tender, and as he worked at it he continued to express his fears that it would not bear us. I was the lightest of the party, and therefore tested the passage first ; being par- tially lifted by Simond on the end of his axe, I crossed the fissure, obtained some anchorage at the other side, and helped the others over. We afterwards ascended until another chasm, deeper and wider than any we had hitherto encountered, arrested us. We walked alongside of it in search of a snow bridge, which we at length found, but the keystone of the arch had unfortunately given way, leaving projecting eaves of snow at both sides, between which we could look into the gulf, till the gloom of its deeper por- tions cut the vision short. Both sides of the crevasse were sounded, but no sure footing was obtained; the snow was beaten and carefully trodden down as near to the edge as possible, but it finally broke away from the foot and fell 1857.] DIFFICULT CREVASSES. 71 into the chasm. One of our porters was short-legged and a bad iceman ; the other was a daring fellow, and he now threw the knapsack from his shoulders, came to the edge of the crevasse, looked into it, but drew back again. After a pause he repeated the act, testing the snow with his feet and staff. I looked at the man as he stood beside the chasm manifestly undecided as to whether he should take the step upon which his life would hang, and thought it advisable to put a stop to such perilous play. I accord- ingly interposed, the man withdrew from the crevasse, and he and Simond descended to fetch the ladder. While they were away Huxley sat down upon the ice, with an expression of fatigue stamped upon his counte- nance : the spirit and the muscles were evidently at war, and the resolute will mixed itself strangely with the sense of peril and feeling of exhaustion. He had been only two days with us, and, though his strength is great, he had had no opportunity of hardening himself by previous exercise upon the ice for the task which he had undertaken. The ladder now arrived, and we crossed the crevasse. I was intentionally the last of the party, Huxley being immedi- ately in front of me. The determination of the man dis- guised his real condition from every body but myself, but I saw that the exhausting journey over the boulders and debris had been too much for his London limbs. Con- verting my water-proof havresack into a cushion, I made him sit down upon it at intervals, and by thus breaking the steep ascent into short stages we reached the cabin of the Grands Mulets together. Here I spread a rug on the boards, and placing my bag for a pillow, he lay down, and after an hour's profound sleep he rose refreshed and well ; but still he thought it wise not to attempt the ascent farther. Our porters left us : a, baton was stretched across the room over the stove, and our wet socks and leggings were thrown across it to dry ; our boots were placed 72 STAR TWINKLING. [1857. around the fire, and we set about preparing our evening meal. A pan was placed upon the fire, and filled with snow, which in due time melted and boiled ; I ground some chocolate and placed it in the pan, and afterwards ladled the beverage into the vessels we possessed, which con- sisted of two earthen dishes and the metal cases of our brandy flasks. After supper Simond went out to inspect the glacier, and was observed by Huxley, as twilight fell, in a state of deep contemplation beside a crevasse. Gradually the stars appeared, but as yet no moon. Be- fore lying down we went out to look at the firmament, and noticed, what I suppose has been observed to some extent by everybody, that the stars near the horizon twinkled busily, while those near the zenith shone with a steady light. One large star in particular excited our admira- tion ; it flashed intensely, and changed colour incessantly, sometimes blushing like a ruby, and again gleaming like an emerald. A determinate colour would sometimes re- main constant for a sensible time, but usually the flashes followed each other in very quick succession. Three planks were now placed across the room near the stove, and upon these, with their rugs folded round them, Huxley and Hirst stretched themselves, while I nestled on the boards at the most distant end of the room. We rose at eleven o'clock, renewed the fire and warmed ourselves, after which we lay down again. I at length observed a patch of pale light upon the wooden wall of the cabin, which had entered through a hole in the end of the edifice, and rising found that it was past one o'clock. The cloud- less moon was shining over the wastes of snow, and the scene outside was at once wild, grand, and beautiful. Breakfast was soon prepared, though not without diffi- culty ; we had no candles, they had been forgotten ; but I fortunately possessed a box of wax matches, of which Hux- ley took charge, patiently igniting them in succession, and 1857.1 START FROM THE GRANDS MULETS. 73 jhus giving us a tolerably continuous light. We had some lea, which had been made at the Montanvert, and carried p the Grands Mulets in a bottle. My memory of that tea Is not pleasant ; it had been left a whole night in contact pith its leaves, and smacked strongly of tannin. The mow-water, moreover, with which we diluted it was not lure, but left a black residuum at the bottom of the dishes In which the beverage was served. The few provisions teemed necessary being placed in Simond's knapsack, at wenty minutes past two o'clock we scrambled down the pcks, leaving Huxley behind us. The snow was hardened by the night's frost, and we pere cheered by the hope of being able to accomplish the [scent with comparatively little labour. We were envi- roned by an atmosphere of perfect purity ; the larger Jtars hung like gems above us, and the moon, about half all, shone with wondrous radiance in the dark firmament. |)ne star in particular, which lay eastward from the moon, juddenly made its appearance above one of the Aiguilles, Ind burned there with unspeakable splendour. We [urned once towards the Mulets, and saw Huxley's form [rejected against the sky as he stood upon a pinnacle of pck ; he gave us a last wave of the hand and descended, Mrile we receded from him into the solitudes. ; The evening previous our guide had examined the gla- jier for some distance, his progress having been arrest- id by a crevasse. Beside this we soon halted : it was panned at one place by a bridge of snow, which was of DO light a structure to permit of Simond's testing it alone ; r Q therefore paused while our guide uncoiled a rope and led us all together. The moment was to me a peculiarly jlemn one. Our little party seemed so lonely and so mall amid the silence and the vastness of the surrotmd- ig scene. We were about to try our strength under un- nown conditions, and as the various possibilities of the 74 A WRONG TURN. [1857 [ enterprise crowded on the imagination, a sense of respon 1 sibility for a moment oppressed me. But as I looked alof j and' saw the glory of the heavens, my heart lightened, anc'j I remarked cheerily to Hirst that Nature seemed to smil( upon our work. " Yes," he replied, in a calm and ear nest voice, " and, God willing, we shall accomplish it." A pale light now overspread the eastern sky, which in- creased, as we ascended, to a daffodil tinge ; this after- wards heightened to orange, deepening at one extremity into red, and fading at the other into a pure ethereal hue to which it would be difficult to assign a special name Higher up the sky was violet, and this changed by insen sible degrees into the darkling blue of the zenith, whicl had to thank the light of moon and stars alone for its ex istence. We wound steadily for a time through valley of ice, climbed white and slippery slopes, crossed a num ber of crevasses, and after some time found ourselves be side a chasm of great depth and width, which extendec right and left as far as we could see. We turned to tin left, and marched along its edge in search of a pont ; bu matters became gradually worse : other crevasses joinec on to the first one, and the further we proceeded the mor< riven and dislocated the ice became. At length w> reached a place where further advance was impossible Simond in his difficulty complained of the want of light and wished us to wait for the advancing day ; I, on th contrary, thought that we had light enough, and ought t make use of it. Here the thought occurred to me tha Simond, having been only once before to the top of th mountain, might not be quite clear about the route ; th glacier, however, changes within certain limits from yea to year, so that a general knowledge was all that could b expected, and we trusted to our own muscles to make goo< any mistake in the way of guidance. We now turned an< retraced our steps along the edges of chasms where the ic 357.] SERACS OF THE DOME DU GOTJTE. 75 m r as disintegrated and insecure, and succeeded at length in | nding a bridge which bore us across the crevasse. This jrror caused us the loss of an hour, and after walking for this jime we could cast a stone from the point we had attained 3 the place whence we had been compelled to return. Our way now lay along the face of a steep incline of now, which was cut by the fissure we had just passed, in direction parallel to our route. On the heights to our ight, loose ice-crags seemed to totter, and we passed two racks over which the frozen blocks had rushed some short ime previously. We were glad to get out of the range of iiese terrible projectiles/ and still more so to escape the iicinity of that ugly crevasse. To be killed in the open jir would be a luxury, compared with having the life queezed out of one in the horrible gloom of these chasms, riie blush of the coming day became more and more in- bnse ; still the sun himself did not appear, being hidden h>m us by the peaks of the Aiguille du Midi, which were U'awn clear and sharp against the brightening sky. Right aider this Aiguille were heaps of snow smoothly rounded fcd constituting a portion of the sources whence the Gla- jier du Geant is fed ; these, as the day advanced, bloomed nth a rosy light. We reached the Petit Plateau, which r Q found covered with the remains of ice avalanches ; ibove us upon the crest of the mountain rose three mighty astions, divided from each other by deep vertical rents, : r ith clean smooth walls, across which the lines of annual tedding were drawn like courses of masonry. From these, r hich incessantly renew themselves, and from the loose ind broken ice-crags near them, the boulders amid which re now threaded our way had been discharged. When ;:iey fall, their descent must be sublime. i The snow had been gradually getting deeper, and the scent more wearisome, but superadded to this at the Petit s'lateau was the uncertainty of the footing between the 76 THE LOST GUIDES. [1857 blocks of ice. In many places the space was merely co\ ered by a thin crust, which, when trod upon, instantl yielded, and we sank with a shock sometimes to the hips Our way next lay up a steep incline to the Grand Plateau the depth and tenderness of the snow augmenting as w ascended. We had not yet seen the sun, but, as we al tained the brow which forms the entrance to the Grain Plateau, he hung his disk upon a spike of rock to ou left, and, surrounded by a glory of interference spectra c the most gorgeous colors, blazed down upon us. On th Grand Plateau we halted and had our frugal refreshment At some distance to our left was the crevasse into whic: Dr. Hamel's three guides were precipitated by an av lanche in 1820 ; they are still entombed in the ice, an some future explorer may perhaps see them disgorg lower down, fresh and undecayed. They can hardly reaci the surface until they pass the snow-line of the glacier, fo above this line the quantity of snow that annually fa being in excess of the quantity melted, the tendency wou be to make the ice-covering above them thicker. But i is also possible that the waste of the ice underneath m have brought the bodies to the bed of the glacier, whe their very bones may have been ground to mud by agency which the hardest rocks cannot withstand. As the sun poured his light upon the Plateau the lit snow-facets sparkled brilliantly, sometimes with a pu white light, and at others with prismatic colours. Cor trasted with the white spaces above and around us wer the dark mountains on the opposite side of the valley c Chamouni, around which fantastic masses of cloud wer beginning to build themselves. Mont Buet, with its con of snow, looked small, and the Brevent altogether mean the limestone bastions of the Fys, however, still pre sented a front of gloom and grandeur. We traverse* the Grand Plateau, and at length reached the base of ai 7.] THE GUIDE TIRED. 77 tremely steep incline which stretched upwards towards e Corridor. Here, as if produced by a fault, consequent pon the sinking of the ice in front, rose a vertical preci- ice, from the coping of which vast stalactites of ice de- ended. Previous to reaching this place I had noticed a aggard expression upon the countenance of our guide, hich was now intensified by the prospect of the ascent efore him. Hitherto he had always been in front, which r as certainly the most fatiguing position. I felt that I mst now take the lead, so I spoke cheerily to the man nd placed him behind me. Marking a number of points pon the slope as resting-places, I went swiftly from one 3 the other. The surface of the snow had been partially lelted by the sun and then refrozen, thus forming a super- cial crust, which bore the weight up to a certain point nd then suddenly gave way, permitting the leg to sink above the knee. The shock consequent on this, and subsequent effort necessary to extricate the leg, were xtremely fatiguing. My motion was complained of as )o quick, and my tracks as imperfect ; I moderated the )rmer, and, to render my footholes broad and sure, I tamped upon the frozen crust, and twisted my legs in the )ft mass underneath, a terribly exhausting process. I .ins led the way to the base of the Rochers Rouges, up to r hich the fault already referred to had prolonged itself as i crevasse, which was roofed at one place by a most dan- gerous-looking snow-bridge. Simond came to the front ; | drew his attention to the state of the snow, and proposed jlimbing the Rochers Rouges ; but, with a promptness un- sual with him, he replied that this was impossible ; the ridge was our only means of passing, and we must try it. Ve grasped our ropes, and dug our feet firmly into the ftiow to check the man's descent if the pont gave way, but to our astonishment it bore him, and bore us safely after im. The slope which we had now to ascend had the snow 78 A PERILOUS SLOPE. [185s swept from its surface, and was therefore firm ice. It w; most dangerously steep, and, its termination being the frel ted coping of the precipice to which I have referred, if \\ slid downwards we should shoot over this and be dashe to pieces upon the ice below.* Simond, who had come 1 the front to cross the crevasse, was now engaged in cuttin steps, which he made deep and large, so that they migl serve us on our return. But the listless strokes of h axe proclaimed his exhaustion ; so I took the implemei out of his hands and changed places with him. Step aft( step was hewn, but the top of the Corridor appeared ev( to recede from us. Hirst was behind unoccupied, an could thus turn his thoughts to the peril of our position h&felt the angle on which we hung, and saw the edge < the precipice, to which less than a quarter of a minute slide would carry us, and for the first time during tl journey he grew giddy. A cigar which he lighted for tl purpose tranquillized him. I hewed sixty steps upon this slope, and each step ha cost a minute, by Hirst's watch. The Mur de la Cote ws still before us, and on this the guide-books informed us t\* or three hundred steps were sometimes found necessar; If sixty steps cost an hour, what would be the cost of t\* hundred ? The question was disheartening in the e: treme, for the time at which we had calculated on read ing the summit was already passed, while the chief difl culties remained unconquered. Having hewn our wa along the harder ice we reached snow. I again resorte to stamping to secure a footing, and while thus engage became, for the first time, aware of the drain of fore to which I was subjecting myself. The thought of bein * Those acquainted with the mountain will at once recognise the gra 1 error here committed. In fact, on starting from the Grands Mulcts we hi crossed the glacier too far, and throughout were much too close to the Don du Goute. 57.] WILL AND MUSCLE. 79 isolutely exhausted had never occurred to me, and from st to last I had taken no care to husband my strength. I ways calculated that the will would serve me even should ie muscles fail, but I now found that mechanical laws rule an in the long run ; that no effort of will, no power of drit, can draw beyond a certain limit upon muscular force, he soul, it is true, can stir the body to action, but its nction is to excite and apply force, and not to create it. While stamping forward through the frozen crust I was mpelled to pause at short intervals ; then would set out ain apparently fresh, to find, however, in a few minutes, lat my strength was gone, and that I required to rest ice more. In this way I gained the summit of the Cor- dor, when Hirst came to the front, and I felt some relief i stepping slowly after him, making use of the holes into hich his feet had sunk. He thus led the way to the base * the Mur de la Cote, the thought of which had so long ist a gloom upon us ; here we left our rope ^behind us, nd while pausing I asked Simond whether he did not feel desire to go to the summit. " Bien sur" was his reply, mais /" Our guide's mind was so constituted that the mais " seemed essential to its peace. I stretched my and towards him, and said, " Simond, we must do it." ne thing alone I felt could defeat us : the usual time of ie ascent had been more than doubled, the day was Iready far spent, and if the ascent would throw our sub- iquent descent into night it could not be contemplated. We now faced the Mur, which was by no means so bad 3 we had expected. Driving the iron claws of our boots ito the scars made by the axe, and the spikes of our atons into the slope above our feet, we ascended steadily ntil the summit was attained, and the top of the moun- lin rose clearly above us. We congratulated ourselves pon this ; but Simond, probably fearing that our joy light become too full, remarked, " Mais Ie sommet est en- 80 A DOZE ON THE CALOTTE. [ISgl core bien loin ! " It was, alas ! too true. The snow b came soft again, and our weary limbs sank in it as befor Our guide went on in front, audibly muttering his doub as to our ability to reach the top, and at length he thre himself upon the snow, and exclaimed, " llfaut le reno\ cer ! " Hirst now undertook the task of rekindling tl guide's enthusiasm, after which Simond rose, exclaimin: u Ah ! comme $a me fait mal aux genoux" and went fo ward. Two rocks break through the snow between tl summit of the Mur and the top of the mountain ; the fir is called the Petits Mulcts, and the highest the Dernie Rochers. At the former of these we paused to rest, an finished our scanty store of wine and provisions. We ha not a bit of bread nor a drop of wine left ; our brand flasks were also nearly exhausted, and thus we had to coi template a journey to the summit, and the subsequei descent to the Grands Mulcts, without the slightest pro pect of physical refreshment. The almost total loss < two nights' sleep, with two days' toil superadded, mac me long for a few minutes' doze, so I stretched myse upon a composite couch of snow and granite, and inun< diately fell asleep. My friend, however, soon aroused m< " You quite frighten me," he said ; " I have listened ft some minutes, and have not heard you breathe once." had, in reality, been taking deep draughts of the mountai air, but so silently as not to be heard. I now filled our empty wine-bottle with snow and place it in the sunshine, that we might have a little water o our return. We then rose ; it was half-past two o'clock we had been upwards of twelve hours climbing, and I ca culated that, whether we reached the summit or not, ^ could at all events work towards it for another hour. T the sense of fatigue previously experienced, a new ph< nomcnon was now added, the beating of the heart. W were incessantly pulled up by this, which sometimes b< 857.] THE SUMMIT ATTAINED. 81 82 CLOUDS FROM THE SUMMIT. [1857. Talefre with its surrounding peaks, the Grand Jorasse. Mont Mallet, and the Aiguille du Ge*ant, with our own familiar glaciers, were all below us. And as our eye ranged over the broad shoulders of the mountain, over ice hills and valleys, plateaux and far-stretching slopes o: snow, the conception of its magnitude grew upon us, anc impressed us more and more. The clouds were very grand, grander indeed than anything I had ever before seen. Some of them seemec to hold thunder in their breasts,' they were so dense and dark ; others, with their faces turned sunward, shone with the dazzling whiteness of the mountain snow ; while others again built themselves into forms resembling gigantic elm trees, loaded with foliage. Towards the horizon the lux- ury of colour added itself to the magnificent alternation o: light and shade. Clear spaces of amber and ethereal green embraced the red and purple cumuli, and seemed to form the cradle in which they swung. Closer at hand, squally mists, suddenly engendered, were driven hither and thithei by local winds ; while the clouds at a distance lay " like angels sleeping on the wing," with scarcely visible motion. Mingling , with the clouds, and sometimes rising above them, were the highest mountain heads, and as our eyes wandered fronvpeak to peak, onwards to the remote hori-i zon, space itself seemed more vast from the manner in which the objects which it held were distributed. I wished to repeat the 1 remarkable experiment of De Saussure upon sound, and for this purpose had requested Simond to bring a pistol from Chamouni ; but in the mul- titude of his cares he forgot it, and in lieu of it my host ai the Montanvert had placed in two tin tubes, of the same size and shape, the same amount of gunpowder, securely closing the tubes afterwards, and furnishing each of them with a small lateral aperture. We now planted one oi them upon the snow, and bringing a strip of amadou into 1857.] INTENSITY OF SOUND. 83 communication with the touchhole, ignited its most dis- tant end : it failed ; we tried again, and were successful, the explosion tearing asunder the little case which con- tained the powder. The sound was certainly not so great as I should have expected from an equal quantity of pow- der at the sea level.* The snow upon the summit was indurated, but of an exceedingly fine grain, and the beautiful effect already referred to as noticed upon the Stelvio was strikingly manifest. The hole made by driving the baton into the snow was filled with a delicate blue light ; and, by manage- ment, its complementary pinky yellow could also be pro- duced. Even the iron spike at the end of the baton made a hole sufficiently deep to exhibit the blue colour, which certainly depends on the size and arrangement of the snow crystals. The firmament above us was without a cloud, and of a darkness almost equal to that which surrounded the moon at 2 A. M. Still, though the sun was shining, a breeze, whose tooth had been sharpened by its passage over the snow-fields, searched us through and through. The day was also waning, and, urged by the warnings of our ever prudent guide, we at length began the descent. Gravity was now in our favour, but gravity could not entirely spare our wearied limbs, and where we sank in the snow we found our downward progress very trying. I suffered from thirst, but after we had divided the liquefied snow at the Petits Mulcts amongst us we had nothing to drink. I crammed the clean snow into my mouth, but the process of melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched throat, while the chill was painful to the teeth. We * I fired the second case in a field in Hampshire, and, as far as my memory enabled me to make the comparison, found its sound considerably denser, if I may use the expression. In 1859 I had a pistol fired at the summit of Mont Blanc : its sound was sensibly feebler and shorter than in the valley ; it resem- bled somewhat the discharge of a cork from a champagne bottle, though much louder, but it could not be at all compared to the sound of a common cracker. 84 AN UNEXPECTED GLISSADE. [1857. marched along the Corridor, and crossed cautiously the perilous slope on which we had cut steps in the morning, breathing more freely after we had cleared the ice-preci- pice before described. Along the base of this precipice we now wound, diverging from our morning's track, in order to get surer footing in the snow ; it was like flour, and while descending to the Grand Plateau we sometimes sank in it nearly to the waist. When I endeavoured to squeeze it, so as to fill my flask, it at first refused to cling together, behaving like so much salt; the heat of the hand, however, soon rendered it a little moist, and capa- ble of being pressed into compact masses. The sun met us. here with extraordinary power ; the heat relaxed my muscles, but when fairly immersed in the shadow of the Dome du Goute*, the coolness restored my strength, which augmented as the evening advanced. Simond insisted on the necessity of haste, to save us from the perils of dark- ness. " On pent perir " was his repeated admonition, and he was quite right. We reached the region of ponts, more weary, but, in compensation, more callous, than we had been in the morning, and moved over the soft snow of the bridges as if we had been walking upon eggs. The valley of Chamouni was filled with brown-red clouds, which crept towards us up the mountain ; the air around and above us was, however, clear, and the chastened light told us that day was departing. Once as we hung upon a steep slope, where the snow was exceedingly soft, Hirst omitted to make his footing sure ; the soft mass gave way, and he fell, uttering a startled shout as he went down the declivity. I was attached to him, and, fixing my feet suddenly in the snow, endeavoured to check his fall, but I seemed a mere feather in opposition to the force with which he descended.* I fell, and went down after him ; and we carried quite an avalanche of snow along with us, * I believe that I could stop him now (1860). 1857.] BLIND AMID THE CREVASSES. 85 in which we were almost completely hidden at the bottom of the slope. All further dangers, however, were soon past, and we went at a headlong speed to the base of the Grands Mulets, the sound of our batons against the rocks calling Huxley forth. A position more desolate than his had been can hardly be imagined. For seventeen hours he had been there. He had expected us at two o'clock in the afternoon ; the hours came and passed, and till seven in the evening he had looked for us. " To the end of my life," he said, " I shall never forget the sound of those batons." It was his turn now to nurse me, which he did, repaying my previous care of him with high interest. We were all soon stretched, and, in spite of cold and hard boards, I slept at intervals ; but the night, on the whole, was a weary one, and we rose next morning with muscles more tired than when we lay down. Friday, 14/i August. Hirst was almost blind this morning : and our guide's eyes were also greatly inflamed. We gathered our things together, and bade the Grands Mulets farewell. It had frozen hard during the night, and this, on the steeper slopes, rendered the footing very insecure. Simond, moreover, appeared to be a little be- wildered, and I sometimes preceded him in cutting the steps, while Hirst moved among the crevasses like a blind man ; one of us keeping near him, so that he might feel for the actual places where our feet had rested, and place his own in the same position. It cost us three hours to cross from the Grands Mulets to the Pierre 1'Echelle, where we discarded our leggings, had a mouthful of food, and a brief rest. Once upon the safe earth Simond' s powers seemed to be restored, and he led us swiftly downwards to the little auberge beside the Cascade du Tard, where we had some excellent lemonade, equally choice cognac, fresh straw- berries and cream. How sweet they were, and how beau- tiful we thought the peasant girl who served them ! Our 86 HAPPY EVENINGS. [1857. guide kept a little hotel, at which we halted, and found it clean and comfortable. We were, in fact, totally unfit to go elsewhere. My coat was torn, holes were kicked through my boots, and I was altogether ragged and shab- by. A warm bath before dinner refreshed all mightily. Dense clouds now lowered upon Mont Blanc, and we had not been an hour at Chamouni when the breaking up of the weather was announced by a thunder-peal. We had accomplished our journey just in time. (12-). After our return we spent every available hour upon the ice, working at questions which shall be treated under their proper heads, each day's work being wound up by an evening of perfect enjoyment. Roast mutton and fried potatoes were our incessant fare, for which, after a little longing for a change at first, we contracted a final and permanent love. As the year advanced, moreover, and the grass sprouted with augmented vigour on the slopes of the Montanvert, the mutton, as predicted by our host, became more tender and juicy. We had also some capital Sallenches beer, cold as the glacier water, but effervescent as champagne. Such were our food and drink. After din- ner we gathered round the pine-fire, and I can hardly think it possible for three men to be more happy than we then were. It was not the goodness of the conversation, nor any high intellectual element, which gave the charm to our gatherings ; the gladness grew naturally out of our own perfect health, and out of the circumstances of our position. Every fibre seemed a repository of latent joy, which the slightest stimulus sufficed to bring into conscious action. On the 17th, I penetrated with Simond through thick gloom to the Tacul ; on the 18th, we set stakes at the same 1857.] A GLACIER "BLOWER." 87 place : on the same day, while crossing the medial moraine of the Talefre, a little below the cascade, a singular noise attracted my attention ; it seemed at first as if a snake were hissing about my feet. On changing my position the sound suddenly ceased, but it soon recommenced. There was some snow upon the glacier, which I removed, and placed my ear close to the ice, but it was difficult to fix on the precise spot from which the sound issued. I cut away the disintegrated portion of the surface, and at length discovered a minute crack, from which a stream of air issued, which I could feel as a cold blast against my hand. While cutting away the surface fur- ther, I stopped the little " blower." A marmot screamed near me, and while I paused to look at the creature scampering up the crags, the sound commenced again, changing its note variously, hissing like a snake, sing- ing like a kettle, and sometimes chirruping intermittently like a bird. On passing my fingers to and fro over the crack, I obtained a succession of audible puffs ; the current was sufficiently strong to blow away the corner of my gauze veil when held over the fissure. Still the crack was not wide enough to permit of the entrance of my finger nail ; and to issue with such force from so minute a rent the air must have been under considerable pressure. The origin of the blower was in all probability the fol- lowing. When the ice is recompacted after having de- scended a cascade, it is next to certain that chambers of air will be here and there enclosed, which, being power- fully squeezed afterwards, will issue in the manner de- scribed whenever a crack in the ice furnishes it with a means of escape. In my experiments on flowing mud, for example, the air entrapped in the mass while descending from the sluice into the trough, bursts in bubbles from the surface at a short distance downwards. I afterwards examined the Talefre cascade from summit 88 A DIFFICULT LINE. [1857. to base, with reference to the structure, until at the close of the day thickening clouds warned me off. I went down the glacier at a trot, guided by the boulders capped with little cairns which marked the route. The track which I had pursued for the last five weeks amid the crevasses near 1' Angle was this day barely passable. The glacier had changed, my work was drawing to a close, and, as I looked at the objects which had now become so familiar to me, I felt that, though not viscous, the ice did not lack the quality of " adhesiveness," and I felt a little sad at the thought of bidding it so soon farewell. At some distance below the Montanvert the Mer de Glace is riven from side to side by transverse crevasses.: these fissures indicate that the glacier where they occur is in a state of longitudinal strain which produces transverse fracture. I wished to ascertain the amount of stretch- ing which the glacier here demanded, and which the ice was not able to give; and for this purpose desired to compare the velocity of a line set out across .the fissured portion with that of a second line staked out across the ice before it had become thus fissured. A previous inspection of the glacier through the telescope of our theodolite in- duced us to fix on a place which, though much riven, still did not exclude the hope of our being able to. reach the other side. Each of us was, as .usual, armed with his own axe; and, carrying with us suitable stakes, my guide and myself entered upon this portion of the glacier on the morning of the 19th of August. I was surprised on entering to find some veins of white ice, which from their position and aspect appeared to be derived from the Glacier du Ge'ant; but to these I shall subsequently refer. Our work was extremely difficult ; we penetrated to some distance along one line, but were finally forced back, and compelled to try another. Right and left of us were profound fissures, and once 1857.] "NOUS NOUS TROUVERONS PERDUS." 89 a cone of ice forty feet high leaned quite over our track. In front of us was a second leaning mass borne by a mere stalk, and so topheavy that one wondered why the slight pedestal on which it rested did not suddenly crack across. We worked slowly forwards, and soon found our- selves in the shadow of the topheavy mass above referred to ; and from which I escaped with a wounded hand, caused by over-haste. Simond surmounted the next ridge and exclaimed, "Nous nous trouverons perdus ! " I reached his side, and on looking round the place saw that there was no footing for man. The glacier here, as shown .in the frontispiece, was cut up into thin wedges, separated from each other by profound chasms, and the wedges were so broken across as to render creeping along their edges quite impossible. Thus brought to a stand, I fixed a stake at the point where we were forced to halt, and re- treated along edges of detestable granular ice, which fell in showers. into the crevasses when struck by the axe. At one place an exceedingly deep fissure was at our left, which was joined, at a sharp angle, by another at our right, and we were compelled to cross at the place of in- tersection : to do this we had to trust ourselves to a pro- jecting knob of that vile rotten ice which I had learned to fear since my experience of it on the Col du Ge'ant. We finally escaped, and set out our line at another place, where the glacier, though badly cut, was not impassable. On the 20th, we made a series of final measurements at the Tacul, and determined the motion of two lines which we had set out upon the previous day. On the 21st, we quitted the Montanvert ; I had been there from the 15th of July, and the longer I remained the better I liked the establishment and the people connected with it. It was then managed by Joseph Tairraz and Jules Charlet, both of whom showed us every attention. In 1858 and 1859 I had occasion to revisit the establishment, which was then 90 FAREWELL TO THE MONTANVERT. [1857. managed by Jules and his brother, and found in it the same good qualities. During my winter expedition of 1859 I also found the same readiness to assist me in every possible way ; honest Jules expressing his willingness to ascend through the snow to the auberge if I thought his presence would in any degree contribute to my comfort. We crossed the glacier, and descended by the Chapeau to the Cascade des Bois, the inclination of which and of the lower portion of the glacier we then determined. The day was magnificent. Looking upwards, the Aiguilles de Charmoz and du Dru rose right and left like sentinels of the valley, while in front of us the ice descended the steep, a bewildering mass of crags and chasms. At the other side was the pine-clad slope of the Montanvert. Further on the Aiguille du Midi threw its granite pyramid between us and Mont Blanc ; on the Dome du Gout the seracs of the mountain were to be seen, while issuing as if from a cleft in the mountain side the Glacier des Bossons thrust through the black pines its snowy tongue. Below us was the beautiful valley of Chamouni itself, through which the Arve and Arveiron rushed like enlivening spirits. We finally examined a grand old moraine produced by a Mer de Glace of other ages, when the ice quite crossed the valley of Chamouni and abutted against the opposite mountain-wall. Simond had proved himself a very valuable assistant ; he was intelligent and perfectly trustworthy ; and though the peculiar nature of my work sometimes caused me to attempt things against which his prudence protested, he lacked neither strength nor courage. On reaching Cha- mouni and adding up our accounts, I found that I had not sufficient cash to pay him ; money was waiting for me at the post-office in Geneva, and thither it was arranged that my friend Hirst should proceed next morning, while I was to await the arrival of the money at Chamouni. My guide 1857.] EDOUARD SIMOND. 91 heard of this arrangement, and divined its cause : he carne to me, and in the most affectionate manner begged of me to accept from him the loan of 500 francs. Though I did not need the loan, the mode in which it was offered to me augmented the kindly feelings which I had long entertained towards Simond, and I may add that my in- tercourse with him since has served merely to confirm my first estimate of his worthiness. 92 DOUBTS REGARDING STRUCTURE. [1853. EXPEDITION OF 1858. (13.) I had confined myself during the summer of 1857 to the Mer de Glace and its tributaries, desirous to make my knowledge accurate rather than extensive. I had made the acquaintance of all accessible parts of the glacier, and spared no pains to master both the details and the meaning of the laminated structure of the ice, but I found no fact upon which I could take my stand and say to an advocate of an opposing theory, " This is unassailable." In experi- mental science we have usually the power of changing the conditions at pleasure ; if Nature does not reply to a ques- tion, we throw it into another form ; a combining of condi- tions is, in fact, the essence of experiment. To meet the requirements of the present question, I could not twist the same glacier into various shapes, and throw it into differ- ent states of strain and pressure ; but I might, by visiting many glaciers, find all needful conditions fulfilled in detail, and by observing these I hoped to confer upon the subject the character and precision of a true experimental inquiry. The summer of 1858 was accordingly devoted to this purpose, when I had the good fortune to be accompanied by Professor Ramsay, the author of some extremely in- teresting papers upon ancient glaciers. Taking Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Lucerne in our way, we crossed the Briinig on the 22nd of July, and met my guide, Christian Lauener, at Meyringen. On the 23rd we visited the glacier of Rosenlaui, and the glacier of the Schwartz- wald, and reached Grindelwald in the evening of the same day. My expedition with Mr. Huxley had taught me that the Lower Grindelwald Glacier was extremely in- 1858.] A GLOOMY PROSPECT. 93 structive, and I was anxious to see many parts of it once more ; this I did, in company with Ramsay, and we also spent a day upon the upper glacier, after which our path lay over the Strahleck to the glaciers of the Aar and of the Rhone. PASSAGE OF THE STRAHLECK. (14.) ON Monday, the 26th of July, we were called at 4 A. M., and found the weather very unpromising, but the two mornings which preceded it had also been threatening without any evil result. There was, it is true, something more than usually hostile in the aspect of the clouds, which sailed sullenly from the west, and smeared the air and mountains as if with the dirty smoke of a manufac- turing town. We despatched our coffee, went down to the bottom of the Grindelwald valley, up the opposite slope, and were soon amid the gloom of the pines which partially cover it. On emerging from these, a watery gleam on the mottled head of the Eiger was the only evidence of direct sunlight in that direction. To our left was the Wetterhorn, surrounded by wild and disorderly clouds, through the fissures of which the morning light glared strangely. For a time the Heisse Platte was seen, a dark brown patch amid the ghastly blue which overspread the surrounding slopes of snow. The clouds once rolled up, and revealed for a moment the summits of the Viescher- horner ; but they immediately settled down again, and hid ! the mountains from top to base. Soon afterwards they : drew themselves partially aside, and a patch of blue over the Strahleck gave us hope and pleasure. As we ascended, 94 ICE CASCADE AND PROTUBERANCES. [1858. the prospect in front of us grew better, but that behind us and the wind came from behind grew worse. Slowly and stealthily the dense neutral-tint masses crept along the sides of the mountains, and seemed to dog us like spies ; while over the glacier hung a thin veil of fog, through which gleamed the white minarets of the ice. When we first spoke of crossing the Strahleck, Lauener said it would be necessary to take two guides at least ; but after a day's performance on the ice he thought we might manage very well by taking, in addition to himself, the herd of the alp, over the more difficult part of the pass. He had further experience of us on the second day, and now, as we approached the herd's hut, I was amused to hear him say that he thought any assistance beside his own unnecessary. Relying upon ourselves, therefore, we continued our route, and were soon upon the glacier, which had been rendered smooth and slippery through the re- moval of its disintegrated surface by the warm air. Cross- ing the Strahleck branch of the glacier to its left side, we climbed the rocks to the grass arid flowers which clothe the slopes above them. Our way sometimes lay over these, sometimes along the beds of streams, across turbulent brooks, and once around the face of a cliff, which afforded us about an inch of ledge to stand upon, and some protrud- ing splinters to lay hold of by the hands. Having reached a promontory which commanded a fine view of the glacier, and of the ice cascade by which it was fed, I halted, to check the observations already made from the side of the opposite mountain. Here, as there, cliffy ridges were seen crossing the cascade of the glacier, with interposed spaces of dirt and de*bris, the former being toned down, and the latter squeezed towards the base of the fall, until finally the ridges swept across the glacier, in gentle swellings, from side to side ; while the valleys between them, holding the principal share of the superficial impurity, formed the 1858.] DIRT-BANDS OF THE STRAHLECK BRANCH. 95 cradles of the so-called Dirt-Bands. These swept con- centric with the protuberances across 'the glacier, and remained upon its surface even after the swellings had disappeared. The swifter flow of the centre of the glacier tends of course incessantly to lengthen the loops of the bands, and to thrust the summits of the curves which they form more and more in advance of their lateral portions. The depressions between the protuberances appeared to be furrowed by minor wrinkles, as if the ice of the depres- sions had yielded more than that of the protuberances. This, I think, is extremely probable, though it has never yet been proved. Three stakes, placed, one on the summit, another on the frontal slope, and another at the base of a protuberance, would, I think, move with unequal velocities. They would, I think, shew that, upon the large and gene- ral motion of the glacier, smaller motions are superposed, as minor oscillations are known to cover parasitically the large ones of a vibrating string. Possibly, also, the dirt- bands may owe something to the squeezing of impuri- ties out of the glacier to its surface in the intervals between the swellings. From our present position we could also see the swellings on the Yiescherhorner branch of the glacier, in the valleys between which coarse shingle and debris were collected, which would form dirt-bands if they could. On neither branch, however, do the bands attain the definition and beauty which they possess upon the Mer de Glace. After an instructive lesson we faced our task once more, passing amid crags and boulders, and over steep moraines, from which the stones rolled down upon the slightest dis- turbance. While crossing a slope of snow with an inclina- tion of 45, my footing gave way, I fell, but turned promptly on my face, dug my staff deeply into the snow, and arrested the motion before I had slid a dozen yards. Ramsay was behind me, speculating whether he should be able to 96 ICE CLIFTS THROUGH THE FOG. [1858. pass the same point without slipping ; before he reached it, however, the "snow yielded, he fell, and slid swiftly downwards. Lauener, whose attention had been aroused by my fall, chanced to be looking round when Ranlsay's footing yielded. With the velocity of a projectile he threw himself upon my companion, seized him, and brought him to rest before he had reached the bottom of the slope. The act made a very favourable impression upon me, it was so prompt and instinctive. An eagle could not swoop upon its prey with more directness of aim and swiftness of execution. While this went on the clouds were playing hide and seek with the mountains. The ice-crags and pinnacles to our left, looming through the haze, seemed of gigantic pro- portions, reminding one of the Hades of Byron's ' Cain.' " How sunless and how vast are these dim realms ! " We climbed for some time along the moraine which flanks the cascade, and on reaching the level of the brow Lauener paused, cast off his knapsack, and declared for breakfast. While engaged with it the dense clouds which had crammed the gorge and obscured the mountains, all melted away, and a scene of indescribable magnificence was revealed. Overhead the sky suddenly deepened to dark blue, and against it the Finsteraarhorn projected his dark and mighty mass. Brown spurs jutted from the mountain, and between them were precipitous snow-slopes, fluted by the descent of rocks and avalanches, and broken into ice-precipices lower down. Eight in front of us, and from its proximity more gigantic to the eye, was the Shreckhorn, while from couloirs and mountain-slopes the matter of glaciers yet to be was poured into the vast basin on the rim of which we now stood. This it was next our object to cross ; our way lying in part through deep snow-slush, the scene changing perpetually from blue heaven to gray haze which massed itself at intervals in dense clouds about the moun- 1838.] MUTATIONS OF THE CLOUDS. 97 tains. After crossing the basin, our way lay partly over slopes of snow, partly over loose shingle, and at one place along the edge of a formidable precipice of rock. We sat down sometimes to rest, and during these pauses, though they were very brief, the scene had time to go through several of its Protean mutations. At one moment all would be perfectly serene, no cloud in the transparent air to tell us that any portion of it was in motion, while the blue heaven threw its flattened arch over the magnificent amphitheatre. Then in an instant, from some local caul- dron, the vapour would boil up suddenly, eddying wildly in the air, which a moment before seemed so still, and envel- oping the entire scene. Thus the space enclosed by the Finsteraarhorn, the Viescherhorner, and the Shreckhorn, would at one moment be filled with fog to the mountain heads, every trace of which a few minutes sufficed to sweep away, leaving the unstained blue of heaven behind it, and the mountains showing sharp and jagged outlines in the glassy air. One might be almost led to imagine that the vapour molecules endured a strain similar to that of water cooled below its freezing point, or heated beyond its boiling point ; and that, on the strain being relieved by the sudden yielding of the opposing force, the parti- cles rushed together, and thus filled in an instant the clear atmosphere with aqueous precipitation. I had no idea that the Strahleck was so fine a pass. Whether it is the quality of my mind to take in the glory of the present so intensely as to make me forgetful of the glory of the past, I know not, but it appeared to me that I had never seen anything finer than the scene from the summit. The amphitheatre formed by the mountains seemed to me of exceeding magnificence ; nor do I think i that my feeling was subjective merely ; for the simple magnitude of the masses which built up the spectacle would be sufficient to declare its grandeur. Looking 7 98 DESCENT OF THE CRAGS. [1858. down towards the Glacier of the Aar, a scene of wild beauty and desolation presented itself. Not a trace of vegetation could be seen along the whole range of the bounding mountains ; glaciers streamed from their shoul- ders into the valley beneath, where they welded themselves to form the Finsteraar affluent of the Unteraar glacier. After a brief pause, Lauener again strapped on his knapsack, and tempered both will and muscles by the re- mark, that our worst piece of work was now before us. From the place where we sat, the mountain fell precipi- tously for several hundred feet ; and down the weathered crags, and over the loose shingle which encumbered their ledges, our route now lay. Lauener was in front, cool and collected, lending at times a hand to Ramsay, and a word of encouragement to both of us, while I brought up the rear. I found my full haversack so inconvenient that I once or twice thought of sending it down the crags in ad- vance of me, but Lauener assured me that it would be utterly destroyed before reaching the bottom. My com- plaint against it was, that at critical places it sometimes came between me and the face of the cliff, pushing me away from the latter so as to throw my centre of gravity almost beyond the base intended to support it. We came at length upon a snow-slope, which had for a time an inclination of 50 ; then once more to the rocks ; again to the snow, which was both steep and deep. Our batons were at least six feet long : we drove them into the snow to secure an anchor- age, but they sank to their very ends, and we merely re- tained a length of them sufficient for a grasp. This slope was intersected by a so-called Bergschrund, the lower por- tion of the slope being torn away from its upper portion so as to form a crevasse that extended quite round the head of the valley. We reached its upper edge ; the chasm was partially filled with snow, which brought its edges so near that we cleared it by a jump. The rest of the slope was 1858.] THROUGH GLOOM TO THE GKIMSEL. 99 descended by a glissade. Each sat down upon the snow, and the motion, once commenced, swiftly augmented to the rate of an avalanche, and brought us pleasantly to the bottom. As we looked from the heights, we could see that the valley through which our route lay was filled with gray fog : into this we soon plunged, and through it we made our way towards the Abschwung. The inclination of the glacier was our only guide, for .we could see nothing. Reaching the confluence of the Finsteraar and Lauteraar branches, we went downwards with long swinging strides, close alongside the medial moraine of the trunk glacier. The glory of the morning had its check in the dull gloom of the evening. Across streams, amid dirt-cones and gla- cier-tables, and over the long reach of shingle which cov- ers the end of the glacier, we plodded doggedly, and reached the Grimsel at 7 P. M., the journey having cost a little more than 14 hours. (15.) We made the Grimsel our station for a day, which was spent in examining the evidences of ancient glacier action in the valley of Hasli. Near the Hospice, but at the op- posite side of the Aar, rises a mountain-wall of hard gran T ite, on which the flutings and groovings'are magnificently preserved. After a little practice the eye can trace with the utmost precision the line which marks the level of the ancient ice : above this the crags are*sharp and rugged ; while below it the mighty grinder has rubbed off the pin- nacles of the rocks and worn their edges away. The height to which this action extends must be nearly two thousand feet above the bed of the present valley. It is also easy to see the depth to which the river has worked 100 ANCIENT GLACIER ACTION. [1858. its channel into the ancient rocks. In some cases the road from Guttanen to the Grimsel lay right over the pol- ished rocks, asperities being supplied by the chisel of man in order to prevent travellers from slipping on their slopes. Here and there also huge protuberant crags were rounded | into domes almost as perfect as if chiselled by art. To both my companion and myself this walk was full of in- struction and delight. On the 28th of July we crossed the Grimsel pass, and ji traced the scratchings to the very top of it. Ramsay re- marked that their direction changed high up the pass, as if a tributary from the summit had produced them, while | lower down they merged into the general direction of the glacier which had filled the principal valley. From the summit of the Mayenwand we had a clear view of the glacier of the Rhone ; and to see the lower portion of this glacier to advantage no better position can be chosen. The dislocation of its cascade, the spreading out of the ice- below, its system of radial crevasses, and the transverse sweep of its structural groovings, may all be seen. A few hours afterwards we were amid the wild chasms at the brow of the ice-fall, where we worked our way to the centre of the ice, but were unable to attain the opposite side. Having examined the glacier both above and below the cascade, we went down the valley to Yiesch, and ascended thence, on the 304,h of July, to the HOtel Jungfrau on the slopes of the ^Bggischhorn. On the following day we climbed to the summit of the mountain, and from a shel- tered nook enjoyec^ the glorious prospect which it com- mands. The wind was strong, and fleecy clouds flew over the heavens ; some of which, as they formed and dispersed themselves about the flanks of the Aletschhorn, showed extraordinary iridescences. The sunbeams called us early on the morning of the 1st 1858.] THE MARJELEN SEE. 101 of August. No cloud rested on the opposite range of the Yalais mountains, but on looking towards the j5Cggischhorn we found a cap upon its crest ; we looked again, the cap had disappeared and a serene heaven stretched overhead. As we breasted the alp the m'oon was still in the sky, paling more and more before the advancing day ; a single hawk swung in the atmosphere above us ; clear streams babbled from the hills, the louder sounds reposing on a base of music ; while groups of cows with tinkling bells browsed upon the green alp. Here and there the grass was dispossessed, and the flanks of the mountain were covered by the blocks which had been cast down from the summit. On reaching the plateau at the base of the final pyramid, we rounded the mountain to the right and came over the lonely and beautiful Marjelen See. No doubt the hollow which this lake fills had been scooped out in former ages by a branch of the Aletsch glacier ; but long- ago the blue ice gave place to blue water. The glacier bounds it at one side by a vertical wall of ice sixty feet in height : this is incessantly undermined, a roof of crystal being formed over the water, till at length the projecting mass, becoming too heavy for its own rigidity, breaks and tumbles into the lake. Here, attacked by sun and air, its blue surface is rendered dazzlingly white, and several icebergs of this kind now floated in the sunlight ; the water was of a glassy smoothness, and in its blue depths each ice mass doubled itself by reflection.* The Aletsch is the grandest glacier in the Alps : over it we now stood, while the bounding mountains poured yast feeders into the noble stream. The Jungfrau was in front of us without a cloud, and apparently so near that I proposed to my guide to try it without further prepara- tion. He was enthusiastic at first, but caution afterwards ! * A painting of this exquisite lake has been recently executed by Mr. George Barnard. 102 THE ALETSCH GLACIER. .[1858. got the better of his courage. At some distance up the glacier the snow-line was distinctly drawn, and from its edge upwards the mighty shoulders of the hills were heavy laden with the still powdery material of the glacier. Amid blocks and debris we descended to the ice : the portion of it which bounded the lake had been sapped, and a space of a foot existed between ice and water : numerous chasms were formed here, the mass being thus broken, preparatory to being sent adrift upon the lake. We crossed the glacier to its centre, and looking down it the grand peaks of the Mischabel, the noble cone of the Weisshorn, and the dark and stern obelisk of the Mat- terhorn, formed a splendid picture. Looking upwards, a series of most singularly contorted dirt-bands revealed themselves upon the surface of the ice. I sought to trace them to their origin, but was frustrated by the snow which overspread the upper portion of the glacier. Along this we marched for three hours, and came at length to the junction of the four tributary valleys which pour their frozen streams into the great trunk valley.- The glory of the day, and that joy of heart which perfect health confers, may have contributed to produce the impression,! but I thought I had never seen anything to rival in mag-: nificence the region in the heart of which we now found 1 ourselves. We climbed the mountain on the right-hand i side of the glacier, where, seated amid the riven and; weather-worn crags, we fed our souls for hours on the transcendent beauty of the scene. We afterwards redescended to the glacier, which at this place was intersected by large transverse crevasses, many of which were apparently filled with snow, while over others a thin and treacherous roof was thrown. In som cases the roof had broken away, and revealed rows o icicles of great length and transparency pendent from th edges. We at length turned our faces homewards, an 1858.]* A CHAMOIS DECEIVED. 103 looking down' the glacier I saw at a great distance some- thing moving on the ice. I first thought it was a man, though it seemed strange that a man should be there alone. On drawing my guide's attention to it, he at once pronounced it to be a chamois, and I with my telescope immediately verified his statement. The creature bound- ed up the glacier at intervals, and sometimes the vigour of its spring showed that it had projected itself over a crevasse. It approached us sometimes at full gallop : then would stop, look toward us, pipe loudly, and com- mence its race once more. It evidently made the recipro- cal mistake to my own, imagining us to be of its own kith and kin. We sat down upon the ice the better to conceal our forms, and to its whistle our guide whistled in reply. A joyous rush was the creature's first response to the sig- nal ; but it afterwards began to doubt, and its pauses became more frequent. Its form at times was extremely graceful, the head erect in the air, its apparent upright- ness being augmented by the curvature which threw its horns back. I watched the animal through my glass un- til I could see the glistening of its eyes ; but soon after- wards it made a final pause, assured itself of its error, and flew with the speed of the wind to its refuge in the mountains. 104 MY GUIDE. J1858. ASCENT OF THE FINSTERAARHORN, 1858. (16.) SINCE my arrival at the hotel on the 30th of July I had once or twice spoken about ascending the Finsteraarhorn, and on the 2nd of August my host advised me to avail myself of the promising weather. A guide, named Ben- nen, was attached to the hotel, a remarkable-looking man, between 30 and 40 years old, of middle stature, but very strongly built. His countenance was frank and firm, while a light of good-nature at times twinkled in his eye. Altogether the man gave me the impression of physical strength, combined with decision of character. The pro- prietor had spoken to me many times of the strength and courage of this man, winding up his praises of him by the assurance that, if I were killed in Bennen's company, there would be two lives lost, for that the guide would assuredly sacrifice himself in the effort to save his Herr. He was called, and I asked him whether he would ac- company me alone to the top of the Finsteraarhorn. To this he at first objected, urging the possibility of his having to render me assistance, and the great amount of labour which this might entail upon him ; but this was overruled by my engaging to follow where he led, without asking him to render me any help whatever. He then agreed to make the trial, stipulating, however, that he should not have much to carry to the cave of the Faulberg, where we were to spend the night. To this I cordially agreed, and sent on blankets, provisions, wood, and hay, by two porters. My desire, in part, was to make a series of observations at the summit of the mountain, while a similar series was made by Professor Ramsay in the valley of the Rhone, near 1858.] IRIDESCENT CLOUD. 105 Viesch, with a view to ascertaining the permeability of the lower strata of the atmosphere to the radiant heat of the sun. During the forenoon of the 2nd I occupied myself with my instruments, and made the proper arrangements with Ramsay. I tested a mountain-thermometer which Mr. Casella had kindly lent me, and found the boiling point of water on the dining-room table of the hotel to be 199.29 Fahrenheit. At about three o'clock in the after- noon we quitted the hotel, and proceeded leisurely with our two guides up the slope of the ^Eggischhorn. We once caught a sight of the topmost pinnacle of the Fin- steraarhorn ; beside it was the Rothhorn, and near this again the Oberaarhorn, with the Viescher glacier stream- ing from its shoulders. On the opposite side we could sec, over an oblique buttress of the mountain on which we stood, the snowy summit of the Weisshorn ; to the left of this was the ever grim and lonely Matterhorn ; and far- ther to the left, with its numerous snow-cones-, each with its attendant shadow, rose the mighty Mischabel. We descended, and crossed the stream which flows from the Marjelen See, into which a large mass of the glacier had recently fallen, and was now afloat as an iceberg. We passed along the margin of the lake, and at the junction of water and ice I bade Ramsay good bye. At the commence- ment of our journey upon the ice, whenever we crossed a crevasse, I noticed Bennen watching me ; his vigilance, however, soon diminished, whence I gathered that he finally concluded that I was able to take care of myself. Clouds hovered in the atmosphere throughout the whole time of our ascent ; one smoky-looking mass marred the glory of the sunset, but at some distance was another which exhibited colours almost as rich and varied as those of the solar spectrum. I took the glorious banner thus unfurled as a sign of hope, to check the despondency which its gloomy neighbour was calculated to produce. 106 EVENING NEAR THE JUNGFRAU. [1858. Two hours' walking brought us near our place of rest ; the porters had already reached it, and were now return- ing. We deviated to the right, and, having crossed some ice-ravines, reached the lateral moraine of the glacier, and picked our way between it and the adjacent mountain- wall. We then reached a kind of amphitheatre, crossed it, and, climbing the opposite slope, came to a triple grotto formed by clefts in the mountain. In one of these a pine- fire was soon blazing briskly, and casting its red light upon the surrounding objects, though but half dispelling the gloom from the deeper portions of the cell. I left the grotto, and climbed the rocks above it to look at the heavens. The sun had quitted our firmament, but still tinted the clouds with red and purple ; while one peak of snow in particular glowed like fire, so vivid was its illu- mination. During our journey upwards the Jungfrau never once showed her head, but, as if in ill temper, had wrapped her vapoury veil around her. She now looked more good-humoured, but still she did not quite remove her hood ; though all the other summits, without a trace of cloud to mask their beautiful forms, pointed heaven- ward. The calmness was perfect ; no sound of living creature, no whisper of a breeze, no gurgle of water, no rustle of debris, to break the deep and solemn silence. Surely, if beauty be an object of worship, those glorious mountains, with rounded shoulders of the purest white, snow-crested and star-gemmed, were well calculated to excite sentiments of adoration. I returned to the grotto, where supper was prepared and waiting for me. The boiling-point of water, at the level of the " kitchen " floor, I found to be 196 Fahr. Nothing could be more picturesque than the aspect of the cave before we went to rest. The fire was gleaming ruddily. I sat upon a stone bench beside it, while Bennen was in front with the red light glimmering fitfully over him. My 1858.] THE CAVE OF FAULBERG. 107 boiling-water apparatus, which had just been used, was in the foreground ; and telescopes, opera-glasses, haversacks, wine-keg, bottles, and mattocks, lay confusedly around. The heavens continued to grow clearer, the thin clouds, which had partially overspread the sky, melting gradually away. The grotto was comfortable ; the hay sufficient materially to modify the hardness of the rock, and my posi- tion at least sheltered and warm. One possibility re- mained that might prevent me from sleeping, the snor- ing of my companion ; he assured me, however, that he did not snore, and we lay down side by side. The good fellow took care that I should not be chilled ; he gave me the best place, by far the best part of the clothes, and may have suffered himself in consequence ; but, happily for him, he was soon oblivious of this. Physiologists, I believe, have discovered that it is chiefly during sleep that the muscles are repaired ; and erelong the sound I dreaded announced to me at once the repair of Bennen's muscles and the doom of my own. The hollow cave resounded to the deep- drawn snore. I once or twice stirred the sleeper, breaking thereby the continuity of the phenomenon ; but it in- stantly pieced itself together again, and went on as before. I had not the heart to wake him, for I knew that upon him would devolve the chief labour of the coming day. At half-past one he rose and prepared coffee, and at two o'clock I was engaged upon the beverage. We afterwards packed up our provisions and instruments. Bennen bore the former, I the latter, and at three o'clock we set out. We first descended a steep slope to the glacier, along which we walked for a time. A spur of the Faulberg jutted out between us and the ice-laden valley through which we must pass ; this we crossed in order to shorten our way and to avoid crevasses. Loose shingle and boulders over- laid the mountain ; and here and there walls of rock opposed our progress, and rendered the route far from 108 "SHALL WE TRY THE JTJNGFRAU?" [1858. agreeable. We then descended to the Griinhorn tributary, which joins the trunk glacier at nearly a right angle, being terminated by a saddle which stretches across from moun- tain to mountain, with a curvature as graceful and as perfect as if drawn by the instrument of a mathematician. The unclouded moon was shining, and the Jungfrau was before us so pure and beautiful, that the thought of visiting the " Maiden " without further preparation occurred to me. I turned to Bennen, and said, " Shall we try the Jung- frau ? " I think he liked the idea well enough, though he cautiously avoided incurring any responsibility. " If you desire it, I am ready," was his reply. He had never made the ascent, and nobody knew anything of the state of the snow this year ; but Lauener had examined it through a telescope on the previous day, and pronounced it dan- gerous. In every ascent of the mountain hitherto made, ladders had been found indispensable, but we had none. I questioned Bennen as to what he thought of the proba- bilities, and tried to extract some direct encouragement from him ; but he said that the decision rested altogether with myself, and it was his business to endeavour to carry out that decision. " We will attempt it, then," I said, and for some time we actually walked towards the Jungfrau. A gray cloud drew itself across her summit, and clung there. I asked myself why I deviated from my ori- ginal intention ? The Finsteraarhorn was higher, and therefore better suited for the contemplated observa- tions. I could in no wise justify the change, and finally expressed my scruples. A moment's further conversation caused us to " right about," and front the saddle of the Griinhorn. The dawn advanced. The eastern sky became illumi- nated and warm, and high in the air across the ridge in front of us stretched a tongue of cloud like a red flame, and equally fervid in its hue. Looking across the trunk J856.] MAGNIFICENT SCENE. 109 glacier, a valley which is terminated by the Lotsch saddle was seen in a straight line with our route, and I often turned to look along this magnificent corridor. The mightiest mountains in the Oberland form its sides ; still, the impression which it makes is not that of vastness or sublimity, but of loveliness not to be described. The sun had not yet smitten the snows, of the bounding moun- tains, but the saddle carved out a segment of the heavens which formed a background of unspeakable beauty. Over the rim of the saddle the sky was deep orange, passing upwards through amber, yellow, and vague ethereal green to the ordinary firmamental blue. Right above the snow- curve purple clouds hung perfectly motionless, giving depth to the spaces between them. There was something saintly in the scene. Anything more exquisite I had never beheld. We marched upwards over the smooth crisp snow to the crest of the saddle, and here I turned to take a last look along that grand corridor, and at that wonderful " daffodil sky." The sun's rays had already smitten the snows of the Aletschhorn ; the radiance seemed to infuse a principle of life and activity into the mountains and glaciers, but still that holy light shone forth, and those motionless clouds floated beyond, reminding one of that Eastern religion whose essence is the repression of all action and the sub- stitution for it of immortal calm. The Finsteraarhorn now fronted us ; but clouds turbaned the head of the giant, and hid it from our view. The wind, however, being north, inspired us with a strong hope that they would melt as the day advanced. I have hardly seen a finer ice-field than that which now lay before us. Considering the nev which supplies it, it appeared to me that the Viescher glacier ought to discharge as much ice as the Aletsch ; but this is an error due to the extent of neve which is here at once visible : since a glance at the map of this portion 110 THE MOUNTAIN ASSAILED. [1858. of the Oberland shows at once the great superiority of the mountain treasury from which the Aletsch Glacier draws support. Still, the ice-field before us was a most noble one. The surrounding mountains were of impos- ing magnitude, and loaded to their summits with snow. Down the sides of some of them the half-consolidated mass fell in a state of wild fracture and confusion. In some cases the riven masses were twisted and overturned, the ledges bent, and the detached blocks piled one upon another in heaps ; while in other cases the smooth white mass descended from crown to base without a wrinkle. The valley now below us was gorged by the frozen ma- terial thus incessantly poured into it. We crossed it, and reached the base of the Finsteraarhorn, ascended the mountain a little way, and at six o'clock paused to lighten our burdens and to refresh ourselves. The north wind had freshened, we were in the shade, and the cold was very keen. Placing a bottle of tea and a small quantity of provisions in the knapsack, and a few figs and dried prunes in our pockets, we com- .menced the ascent. The Finsteraarhorn sends down a number of cliffy buttresses, separated from each other by wide couloirs filled with ice and snow. We ascended one of these buttresses for a time, treading cautiously among the spiky rocks ; afterwards we went along the snow at the edge of the spine, and then fairly parted company with the rock, abandoning ourselves to the neve of the couloir. The latter was steep, and the snow was so firm that steps had to be cut in it. Once I paused upon a little ledge, which gave me a slight footing, and took the inclination. The slope formed an angle of 45 with the horizon ; and across it, at a little distance be- low me, a gloomy fissure opened its jaws. The sun now cleared the summits which had before cut off his rays, and burst upon us with great power, compelling us to resort to 1858.] THE CREST OF ROCKS. Ill our veils and dark spectacles. Two years before, Beimeu had been nearly blinded by inflammation brought on by the glare from the snow, and he now took unusual care in protecting his eyes. The rocks looking more practicable, we again made towards them, and clambered among them till a vertical precipice, which proved impossible of ascent, fronted us. Bennen scanned the obstacle closely as we slowly approached it, and finally descended to the snow, which wound at a steep angle round its base : on this the footing appeared to me to be singularly insecure, but I marched without hesitation or anxiety in the footsteps of my guide. We ascended the rocks once more, continued along them for some time, and then deviated to the couloir on our left. This snow-slope is much dislocated at its lower portion, and above its precipices and crevasses our route now lay. The snow was smooth, and sufficiently firm and steep to render the cutting of steps necessary. Bennen took the lead : to make each step he swung his mattock once, and his hindmost foot rose exactly at the moment the mattock descended ; there was thus a kind of rhythm in his motion, the raising of. the foot keeping time to the swing of the implement. In this manner we proceeded till we reached the base of the rocky pyramid which caps the mountain. One side of the pyramid had been sliced off, thus drop- ping down almost a sheer precipice for some thousands of feet to the Finsteraar glacier. A wall of rock, about 10 or 15 feet high, runs along the edge of the moun- tain, and this sheltered us from the north wind, which surged with the sound of waves against the tremendous barrier at the other side. " Our hardest work is now before us," said my guide. Our way lay up the steep and splintered rocks, among which we sought out the spikes which were closely enough wedged to bear our 112 THE SUMMIT GAINED. [1858. weight. Each had to trust to himself, and I fulfilled to the letter my engagement with Beimen to ask no help. My boiling-water apparatus and telescope were on my back, much to my annoyance, as the former was heavy, and sometimes swung awkwardly round as I twisted my- self among the cliffs. Bennen offered to take it, but he had his own share to carry, and I was resolved to bear mine. Sometimes the rocks alternated with spaces of ice and snow, which we were at intervals compelled to cross ; sometimes, when the slope was pure ice and very steep, we were compelled to retreat to the highest cliffs. The wall to which I have referred had given way in some places, and through the gaps thus formed the wind rushed with a loud, wild, wailing sound. Through these spaces I could see the entire field of Agassiz's observations ; the junction of the Lauteraar and Finsteraar glaciers at the Abschwung, the medial moraine between them, on which stood the Hotel des Neufchatelois, and the pavilion built by M. Dolfuss, in which Huxley and myself had found shelter two years before. Bennen was evidently anxious to reach the summit, and recommended all observations to be postponed until after our success had been assured. I agreed to this, and kept close at his heels. Strong as he was, he sometimes paused, laid his head upon his mattock, and panted like a chased deer. He complained of fearful thirst, and to quench it we had only my bottle of tea : this we shared loyally, my guide praising its vir- tues, as well he might. Still the summit loomed above us ; still the angry swell of the north wind, beating against the torn battlements of the mountain, made wild music. Upward, however, we strained : and at last, on gaining the crest of a rock, Bennen exclaimed, in a jubi- lant voice, " Die hochste Spitze!" -the highest point. In a moment I was at his side, and saw the summit with- in a few paces of us. A minute or two placed us upon 1858.] THERMOMETER PLACED. 118 the topmost pinnacle, with the blue dome of heaven above us, and a world of mountains, clouds, and glaciers beneath. A notion is entertained by many of the guides, that if you go to sleep at the summit of any of the highest moun- tains, you will " Sleep the sleep that knows no waking." Bennen did not appear to entertain this superstition ; and before starting in the morning, I had stipulated for ten minutes' sleep on reaching the summit, as part compensa- tion for the loss of the night's rest. My first act, after casting a glance over the glorious scene beneath us, was to take advantage of this agreement ; so I lay down and had five minutes' sleep, from which I rose refreshed and brisk. The sun at first beat down upon us with intense force, and I exposed my thermometers ; but thin veils of vapour soon drew themselves before the sun, and denser mists spread over the valley of the Rhone, thus destroying all possibility of concert between Ramsay and myself. I turned therefore to my boiling-water apparatus, filled it with snow, melted the first charge, put more in, and boiled it ; ascertaining the boiling point to be 187 Fahrenheit. On a sheltered ledge, about two or three yards south of the highest point, I placed a minimum- thermometer, in the hope that it would enable us in future years to record the lowest winter temperatures at the summit of the mountain.* * The following note describes the single observation made with this thermometer. Mr. B. informs me that on finding the instrument Bennen swung it in triumph round his head. I fear, therefore, that the obser- vation gives us no certain information regarding the minimum winter temperature. " St. Nicholas, 1859, Aug. 25. " Sir, On Tuesday last (the 23rd inst.) a party, consisting of Messrs. B., II., R. L., and myself, succeeded in reaching the summit of the Finster Aarhorn under the guidance of Bennen aed Melchior Andre'. We made 8 114 SCENE FROM THE SUMMIT. [1858. It is difficult to convey any just impression of the scene from the summit of the Finsteraarhorn : one might, it is true, arrange the visible mountains in a list, stating their heights and distances, and leaving the imagination to fur- nish them with peaks and pinnacles, to build the precipices, polish the snow, rend the glaciers, and cap the highest summits with appropriate clouds. But if imagination did its best in this way, it would hardly exceed the reality, and would certainly omit many details which contribute to the grandeur of the scene itself. The various shapes of the mountains, some grand, some beautiful, bathed in yellow sunshine, or lying black and riven under the frown of impervious cumuli ; the pure white peaks, cor- nices, bosses, and amphitheatres ; the blue ice rifts, the it an especial object to observe and reset the minimum-thermometer which you left there last year. On reaching the summit, before I had time to stop him, Bennen produced the instrument, and it is just possible that in moving it he may have altered the position of the index. However, as he held the instrument horizontally, and did not, as far as I saw, give it any sensible jerk, I have great confidence that the index remained unmoved. " The reading of the index was 32 Cent. "A portion of the spirit extending over about 10^ (and standing be- tween 33 and 43^) was separated from the rest, but there appeared to be no data for determining when the separation had taken place. As it appeared desirable to unite the two portions of spirit before again setting the index to record the cold of another winter, we endeavoured to effect this by heating the bulb, but unfortunately, just as we were expecting to see them coalesce, the bulb burst, and I have now to express my great regret that my clumsiness or ignorance of the proper mode of setting the instrument in order should have interfered with the continuance of observations of so much interest. The remains of the instrument, together with a note of the accident, I have left in the charge of Wellig, the landlord of the hotel on the JEggischhorn. " We reached the summit about 10.40 A. M. and remained there till noon ; the reading of a pocket thermometer in the shade was 41 F. " Should there be any further details connected with our ascent on which you would like to have information, I shall be happy to supply them to the best of my recollection Meanwhile, with a further apology for my clumsi- ness, I beg to subscribe mvself yours respectfully, "H." " Professor Tyndall." 1858.] "HAVE NO FEAK." 115 stratified snow-precipices, the glaciers issuing from the hollows of the eternal hills, and stretching like frozen serpents through the sinuous valleys ; the lower cloud field itself an empire of vaporous hills shining with dazzling whiteness, while here and there grim summits, brown by nature, and black by contrast, pierce through it like volcanic islands through a shining sea ; add to this the consciousness of one's position which clings to one unconsciously, that undercurrent of emotion which sur- rounds the question of one's personal safety, at a height of more than 14,000 feet above the sea, and which is in- creased by the weird strange sound of the wind surging with the full deep boom of the distant sea against the precipice behind, or rising to higher cadences as it forces itself through the crannies of the weatherworn rocks, all conspire to render the scene from the Finsteraarhorn worthy of the monarch of the Bernese Alps. My guide at length warned me that we must be mov- ing ; repeating the warning more impressively before I attended to it. We packed up, and as we stood beside each other ready to march, he asked me whether we should tie ourselves together, at the same time expressing his belief that it was unnecessary. Up to this time we had been separate, and the thought of attaching ourselves had not occurred to me till he mentioned it. I thought it, however, prudent to accept the suggestion, and so we united our destinies by a strong rope. " Now," said Bennen, " have no fear ; no matter how you throw yourself, I will hold you." Afterwards, on another perilous summit, I repeated this saying of Bennen's to a strong and active guide, but his ob- servation was that it was a hardy untruth, for that in many places Bennen could not have held me. Nevertheless a dar- ing word strengthens the heart, and, though I felt no trace of that sentiment which Bennen exhorted me to banish, and was determined, as far as in me lay, to give him no 116 DISCIPLINE. [1858. opportunity of trying his strength in saving me, I liked the fearless utterance of the man, and sprang cheerily after him. Our descent was rapid, apparently reckless, amid loose spikes, boulders, and vertical prisms of rock, where a f false step would assuredly have been attended with broken bones ; but the consciousness of certainty in our movements never forsook us, and proved a source of keen enjoyment. The senses were all awake, the eye clear, the heart strong, the limbs steady, yet flexible, with power of recovery in store, and ready for instant action should the footing give way. Such is the discipline which a perilous ascent imposes. We finally quitted the crest of rocks, and got fairly upon the snow once more. We first went downwards at a long swinging trot. The sun having melted the crust which we were compelled to cut through in the morning, the leg at each plunge sank deeply into the snow ; but this sink- ing was partly in the direction of the slope of the moun- tain, and hence assisted our progresss. Sometimes the crust was hard enough to enable us to glide upon it for long distances while standing erect ; but the end of these glissades was always a plunge and tumble in the deeper snow. Once upon a steep hard slope Bennen's footing- gave way ; he fell, and went down rapidly, pulling me af- ter him. I fell also, but, turning quickly, drove the spike of my hatchet into the ice, got good anchorage, and held both fast ; my success assuring me that I had improved as a mountaineer since my ascent of Mont Blanc. We tum- bled so often in the soft snow, and our clothes and boots were so full of it, that we thought we might as well try ^ the sitting posture in gliding down. We did so, and descended with extraordinary velocity, being checked at intervals by a bodily immersion in the softer and deeper snow. I was usually in front of Bennen, shooting down with the speed of an arrow, and feeling the check of the rope when the rapidity of my motion exceeded my guide's 1858.] DESCENT BY GLISSADES. 117 estimate of what was safe. Sometimes I was behind him, and darted at intervals with the swiftness of an avalanche right upon him ; sometimes in the same transverse line with him, with the full length of the rope between us ; and here I found its check unpleasant, as it tended to make me roll over. My feet were usually in the air, and it was only necessary to turn them right or left, like the helm of a boat, to change the direction of motion and avoid a diffi- culty, while a vigorous dig of leg and hatchet into the snow was sufficient to check the motion and bring us to rest. Swiftly, yet cautiously, we glided into the region of crevasses, where we at last rose, quite wet, and resumed our walking, until we reached the point where we had left our wine in the morning, and where I squeezed the water from my wet clothes, and partially dried them in the sun. We had left some things at the cave of the Faulberg, and it was Bennen's first intention to return that way and take them home with him. Finding, however, that we could traverse the Viescher glacier almost to the JEggisch- horn, I made this our highway homewards. At the place where we entered it, and for an hour or two afterwards, the glacier was cut by fissures, for the most part covered with snow. We had packed up our rope, and Bennen ad- monished me to tread in his steps. Three or four times he half disappeared in the concealed fissures, but by clutch- ing the snow he rescued himself and went on as swiftly as before. Once my leg sank, and the ring of icicles some fifty feet below told me that I was in the jaws of a cre- vasse ; my guide turned sharply, it was the only time that I had seen concern on his countenance : " Golfs Donner ! Sie haben meine Tritte nicht gefolgt." " Doc/i ! " vra& my only reply, and we went on. He scarcely tried the snow that he crossed, as from its form and colour he could in most cases judge of its condition. For a long time we kept at the left-hand side of the 118 THE VIESCH GLACIER. [1858. glacier, avoiding the fissures which were now permanently open. We came upon the tracks of a herd of chamois, which had clambered from the glacier up the sides of the Oberaarhorn, and afterwards crossed the glacier to the right-hand side, my guide being perfect master of the ground. His eyes went in advance of his steps, and his judgment was formed before his legs moved. The glacier was deeply fissured, but there was no swerving, no retreat- ing, no turning back to seek more practicable routes ; each stride told, and every stroke of the axe was a pro- fitable investment of labour. We left the glacier for a time, and proceeded along the mountain side, till we came near the end of the Trift glacier, where we let ourselves down an awkward face of rock along the track of a little cascade, and came upon the glacier once more. Here again I had occasion to admire the knowledge and promptness of my guide. The glacier, as is well known, is greatly dislocated, and has once or twice proved a prison to guides and travellers, but Bennen led me through the confusion without a pause. We were sometimes in the middle of the glacier, sometimes on the, moraine, and sometimes on the side of the flanking mountain. Towards the end of the day we crossed what seemed to be the consolidated remains of a great ava- lanche ; on this my foot slipped, there was a crevasse at hand, and a sudden effort was necessary to save me from falling into it. In making this effort the spike of my axe turned uppermost, and the palm of my hand came down upon it, thus inflicting a very angry wound. We were soon upon the green alp, having bidden a last farewell to the ice. Another hour's hard walking brought us to our hotel. No one seeing us crossing the alp would have sup- posed that we had laid such a day's work behind us ; the proximity of home gave vigour to our strides, and our pro- gress was much more speedy than it had been on starting 1858.] A ROTATING ICEBERG. 119 iii the morning. I was affectionately welcomed by Ram- say, had a warm bath, dined, went to bed, where I lay fast locked in sleep for eight hours, and rose next morn- ing as fresh and vigorous as if I had never scaled the Finsteraarhorn. (17.) ON the 6th of August there was a long fight between mist and sunshine, each triumphing by turns, till at length the orb gained the victory and cleansed the mountains from every trace of fog. We descended to the Marjelen See, and, wishing to try the floating power of its icebergs, at a place where masses sufficiently large approached near to the shore, I put aside a portion of my clothes, and retaining my boots stepped upon the floating ice. It bore me for a time, and I hoped eventually to be able to paddle myself over the water. On swerving a little, however, from the position in which I first stood, the mass turned over and let me into the lake. I tried a second one, which served me in the same manner ; the water was too cold to continue the attempt, and there was also some risk of being unpleasantly ground between the opposing surfaces of the masses of ice. A very large iceberg which had been detached some short time pre- viously from the glacier lay floating at some distance from us. Suddenly a sound like that of a waterfall drew our attention towards it. We saw it roll over with the utmost deliberation, while the water which it carried along with it rushed in cataracts down its sides. Its previous surface was white, its present one was of a lovely blue, the submerged crystal having now come to the air. The summerset of this iceberg produced a commotion all over the lake ; the floating masses at its edge clashed together, 120 END OF THE ALETSCH GLACIER. [1858 and a mellow glucking sound, due to the lapping of the undulations against the frozen masses, continued long afterwards. We subsequently spent several hours upon the glacier ; and on this day I noticed for the first time a contempo- raneous exhibition of bedding and structure to which I shall refer at another place. We passed finally to the left bank of the glacier, at some distance below the base of the ^Eggischhorn, and traced its old moraines at intervals along the flanks of the bounding mountain. At the summit of the ridge we found several fine old roches moutonnees, on some of which the scratching? of a glacier long departed were well preserved ; and from the direction of the scratchings it might be inferred that the ice moved down the mountain towards the valley of the Rhone. A plunge into a lonely mountain lake ended the day's excursion. On the 7th of August we quitted this noble station. Sending our guide on to Yiesch to take a conveyance and proceed with our luggage down the valley, Ramsay and myself crossed the mountains obliquely, desiring to trace the glacier to its termination. We had no path, but it was hardly possible to go astray. We crossed spurs, climbed and descended pleasant mounds, sometimes with the soft grass under our feet, and sometimes knee-deep in rhododendrons. It took us several hours to reach the end of the glacier, and we then looked down upon it merely. It lay couched like a reptile in a wild gorge, as if it had split the moun- tain by its frozen snout. We afterwards descended to Morill, where we met our guide and driver ; thence down the valley to Visp ; and the following evening saw us lodged at the Monte Rosa hotel in Zermatt. The boiling-point of water on the table of the salle a manger, I found to be 202.58 Fahr. On the following morning I proceeded without my friend to the Gorner glacier. As is well known, the end of this MEADOWS INVADED BY ICE. 121 glacier has been steadily advancing for several years, and when I saw it, the meadow in front of it was partly shrivelled up by its irresistible advance. I was informed by my host that within the last sixty years forty-four cha- lets had been overturned by the glacier, the ground on which they stood being occupied by the ice ; at present there are others for which a similar fate seems imminent. In thus advancing the glacier merely takes up ground which belonged to it in former ages, for the rounded rocks which rise out of the adjacent meadow show that it had once passed over them. I had arranged to meet Ramsay this morning on the road to the RifFelberg. The meeting took place, but I then learned that a minute or two after my departure he had received intelligence of the death of a near relative. Thus was our joint expedition terminated, for he resolved to return at once to England. At my solicitation he ac- companied me to the Eiffel hotel. We had planned an ascent of Monte Rosa together, but the arrangement thus broke down, and I was consequently thrown upon my own resources. Laueiier had never made the ascent, but he nevertheless felt confident that we should accomplish it together. 122 THE RIFFELBERG. [1858. FIRST ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA, 1858. (18.) ON Monday, the 9th of August, we reached the Riffel, and, by good fortune, on the evening of the same day, my guide's brother, the well-known Ulrich Lauener, also arrived at the hotel on his return from Monte Rosa. From him we obtained all the information possible respecting the ascent, and he kindly agreed to accompany us a little way the next morning, to put iis on the right track. At three A.M. the door of my bedroom opened, and Christian Lauener announced to me that the weather was sufficiently good to justify an attempt. The stars were shining overhead ; but Ulrich afterwards drew our attention to some heavy clouds which clung to the mountains on the other side of the valley of the Visp ; remarking that the weather might continue fair throughout the day, but that these clouds were ominous. At four o'clock we were on our way, by which time a gray stratus cloud had drawn itself across the neck of the Matterhorn, and soon afterwards another of the same nature encircled his waist. We proceeded past the Riffelhorn to the ridge above the Gorner glacier, from which Monte Rosa was visible from top to bottom, and where an animated conversation in Swiss patois com- menced. Ulrich described the slopes, passes, and preci- pices, which were to guide us ; and Christian demanded explanations, until he was finally able to declare to me that his knowledge was sufficient. We then bade Ulrich good-bye, and went forward. All was clear about Monte Rosa, and the yellow morning light shone brightly upon its uppermost snows. Beside the Queen of the Alps was the huge mass of the Lyskamm, with a saddle stretching from the one to the other ; next to the Lyskamm came 1653.] SOUNDS ON THE GLACIER. 123 two white rounded mounds, smooth and pure, the Twins Castor and Pollux, and further to the right again the broad brown flank of the Breithorn. Behind us Mont Cervin gathered the clouds more thickly round him, until finally his grand obelisk was totally hidden. We went along the mountain-side for a time, and then descended to the glacier. The surface was hard frozen, and the ice crunched loudly under our feet. There was a hollowness and volume in the sound which require explanation ; and this, I think, is furnished by the remarks of Sir John Her- schel on those hollow sounds at the Solfaterra, near Na- ples, from which travellers have inferred the existence of cavities within the mountain. At the place where these sounds are heard the earth is friable, and, when struck, the concussion is reinforced and lengthened by the partial echos from the surfaces of the fragments. The conditions for a similar effect exist upon the glacier, for the ice is disintegrated to a certain depth, and from the innume- rable places of rupture little reverberations are sent, which give a length and hollowness to the sound pro- duced by the crushing of the fragments on the surface. We looked to the sky at intervals, and once a meteor slid across it, leaving a train of sparks behind. The blue firmament, from which the stars shone down so brightly when we rose, was more and more invaded by clouds, which advanced upon us from our rear, while before us the solemn heights of Monte Rosa were bathed in rich yellow sunlight. As the day advanced the radiance crept down towards the valleys ; but still those stealthy clouds advanced like a besieging army, taking deliberate posses- sion of the summits, one after the other, while grey skir- mishers moved through the air above us. The play of light and shadow upon Monte Rosa was at times beauti- ful, bars of gloom and zones of glory shifting and alter- nating from top to bottom of the mountain. 124 ADVANCE OF THE CLOUDS. [1853. At five o'clock a grey cloud alighted on the shoulder of the Lyskamm, which had hitherto been warmed by the lovely yellow light. Soon afterwards we reached the foot of Monte Rosa, and passed from the glacier to a slope of rocks, whose rounded forms and furrowed surfaces showed that the ice of former ages had moved over them ; the granite was now coated with lichens, and between the bosses where mould could rest were patches of tender moss. As we ascended, a peal to the right announced the descent of an avalanche from the Twins ; it came heralded by clouds of ice-dust, which resembled the sphered masses of condensed vapour which issue from a locomotive. A gentle snow-slope brought us to the base of a precipice of brown rocks, round which we wound ; the snow was in excellent order, and the chasms were so firmly bridged by the frozen mass that no caution was necessary in cross- ing them. Surmounting a weathered cliff to our left, we paused upon the summit to look upon the scene around us. The snow gliding insensibly from the mountains, or discharged in avalanches from the precipices which it over hung, filled the higher valleys with pure white glaciers, which were rifted and broken here and there, exposing chasms and precipices from which gleamed the delicate blue of the half-formed ice. Sometimes, however, the neves spread over wide spaces without a rupture or wrin- kle to break the smoothness of the superficial snow. The sky was now for the most part overcast, but through the residual blue spaces the sun at intervals poured light over the rounded bosses of the mountain. At half-past seven o'clock we reached another precipice of rock, to the left of which our route lay, and here Lauener proposed to have some refreshment ; after which we went on again. The clouds spread more and more, leaving at length mere specks and patches of blue between them. Passing some high peaks, formed by MONTE ROSA CAPPED. 125 the dislocation of the ice, we came to a place where the neve was rent by crevasses, on the walls of which the I stratification due to successive snow-falls was shown with | great beauty and definition. Between two of these fissures jour way now lay : the wall of one of them was hollowed lout longitudinally midway down, thus forming a roof |above and a ledge below, and from roof to ledge stretched a railing of cylindrical icicles, as if intended to bolt them (together. A cloud now for the first time touched the [summit of Monte Rosa, and sought to cling to it, but in a minute it dispersed in shattered fragments, as if dashed to pieces for its presumption. The mountain remained jfor a time clear and triumphant, but the triumph was short-lived : like suitors that will not be repelled, the jdusky vapours came ; repulse after repulse took place, and jthe sunlight gushed down upon the heights, but it was manifest that the clouds gained ground in the conflict. Until about a quarter past nine o'clock our work was jmere child's play, a pleasant morning stroll along the iflanks of the mountain ; but steeper slopes now rose jabove us, which called for more energy, and more care in the fixing of the feet. Looked at from below, some of jthese slopes appeared precipitous ; but we were too well acquainted with the effect of fore-shortening to let this daunt us. At each step we dug our batons into the deep snow. When first driven in, the batons * dipped from us, x but were brought, as we walked forward, to the vertical, and finally beyond it at the other side. The snow was thus forced aside, a rubbing of the staff against it, and of ,the snow-particles against each other, being the conse- iquence. We had thus perpetual rupture and regelation ; while the little sounds consequent upon rupture, reinforced by the partial echos from the surfaces of the granules, * My staff was always the haudle of an axe an inch or two longer than an ordinary walking-stick. 126 THE "COMB" OF THE MOUNTAIN. [1858. were blended together to a note resembling the lowing of cows. Hitherto I had paused at intervals to make notes, or to take an angle ; but these operations now ceased, not from want of time, but from pure dislike ; for when the eye has to act the part of a sentinel who feels that at any moment the enemy may be upon him ; when the body must be balanced with precision, and legs and arms, be- sides performing actual labour, must be kept in readiness for possible contingencies ; above all, when you feel that your safety depends upon yourself alone, and that, if your footing gives way, there is no strong arm behind ready to be thrown between you and destruction ; under such circumstances the relish for writing ceases, and you are willing to hand over your impressions to the safe keeping of memory. From the vast boss which constitutes the lower portion of Monte Rosa, cliffy edges run upwards to the summit. Were the snow removed from these we should, I doubt not, see them as toothed or serrated crags, justifying the term " kamm" or " comb," applied to such edges by tli Germans. Our way now lay along such a kamm, the cliffs of which had, however, caught the snow, and been completely covered by it, forming an edge like the ridge of a house-roof, which sloped steeply upwards. On the Lyskamm side of the edge there was no footing, and, if s human body fell over here, it would probably pass througl a vertical space of some thousands of feet, falling or roll ing, before coming to rest. On the other side the snow slope was less steep, but excessively perilous-looking, anc intersected by precipices of ice. Dense clouds now enve loped us, and made our position far uglier than if it hac been fairly illuminated. The valley below us was one vasi cauldron, filled with precipitated vapour, which came seeth ing at times up the sides of the mountain. Sometimes this fog would partially clear away, and the light would glean 1858.] ASCENT ALONG A CORNICE. 127 upwards from the dislocated glaciers. My guide contin- ually admonished me to make my footing sure, and to fix at each step my staff firmly in the consolidated snow. At one place, for a short steep ascent, the slope became hard ice, and our position a very ticklish one. We hewed our steps as we moved upwards, but were soon glad to deviate from the ice to a position scarcely less awkward. The wind had so acted upon the snow as to fold it over the edge of the kamm, thus causing it to form a kind of cor- lice, which overhung the precipice on the Lyskamm side of the mountain. This cornice now bore our weight : its snow had become somewhat firm, but it was yielding enough to permit the feet to sink in it a little way, and thus secure us at least against the danger of slipping. Here also at each step we drove our batons firmly into :he snow, availing ourselves of whatever help they could render. Once, while thus securing my anchorage, the landle of my hatchet went right through the cornice on which we stood, and, on withdrawing it, I could see^- hrough the aperture into the cloud-crammed gulf below. We continued ascending until we reached a rock protrud- ng from the snow, and here we halted for a few minutes. Lauener looked upwards through the fog. " According :o all description," he observed, " this ought to be the ast kamm of the mountain ; but in this obscurity we can see nothing." Snow began to fall, and we recommenced our journey, quitting the rocks and climbing again along the edge. Another hour brought us to a crest of cliffs, at which, to our comfort, the kamm appeared to cease, and other climbing qualities were demanded of us. On the Lyskamm side, as I have said, rescue would be out of the question, should the climber go over the edge. On the other side of the edge rescue seemed possible, though the slope, as stated already, was most dangerously steep. I now asked Lauener what he would have done, 128 "DIE HOCHSTE SPITZE." [1858. supposing my footing to have failed on the latter slope. He did not seem to like the question, but said that he should have considered well for a moment and then have sprung after me ; but he exhorted me to drive all such thoughts away. I laughed at him, and this did more to set his mind at rest than any formal profession of courage could have done. We were now among rocks: we climbed" cliffs and descended them, and advanced sometimes with our feet on narrow ledges, holding tightly on to other ledges by our fingers ; sometimes, cautiously balanced, we moved along edges of rock with precipices on both sides. Once, in getting round a crag, Lauener shook a book from his pocket ; it was arrested by a rock about sixty or eighty feet below us. He wished to regain it, but I offered to supply its place, if he thought the descent too dangerous. He said he would make the trial, and parted from me. I thought it useless to remain idle. A cleft was before me, through which I must pass ; so, pressing my knees and back against its opposite sides, I gradually worked myself to the top. I descended the other face of the rock, and then, through a second ragged fissure, to the summit of another pinnacle. The highest point of the mountain was now at hand, separated from me merely by a short saddle, carved by weathering out the crest of the mountain. I could hear Lauener clattering after me, through the rocks behind. I dropped down upon the saddle, crossed it, climbed the op- posite cliff, and "die hochste Spitze" of Monte Rosa was won. Lauener joined me immediately, and we mutually con- gratulated each other on the success of the ascent. Th residue of the bread and meat was produced, and a bottl of tea was also appealed to. Mixed with a little cognac Lauener declared that he had never tasted anything like it Snow fell thickly at intervals, and the obscurity was verj great ; occasionally this would lighten and permit the sun to shed a ghastly dilute light upon us through the gleaming 1653.] GLOOM ON THE SUMMIT. 129 vapour. I put my boiling-water apparatus in order, and fixed it in a corner behind a ledge ; the shelter was, how- ever, insufficient, so I placed my hat above the vessel. The boiling-point was 184. 92 Fahr., the ledge on which the instrument stood being 5 feet below the highest point of the mountain. The ascent from the Eiffel hotel occupied us about seven hours, nearly two of which were spent upon the kamm and crest. Neither of us felt in the least degree fatigued ; I, indeed, felt so fresh, that had another Monte Rosa been planted on the first, I should have continued the climb without hesitation, and with strong hopes of reaching the top. I experienced no trace of mountain sickness, lassitude, shortness of breath, heart-beat, or headache ; nevertheless the summit of Monte Rosa is 15,284 feet high, being less than 500 feet lower than Mont Blanc. It is, I think, perfectly certain, that the rarefaction of the air at this height is not sufficient of itself to produce the symptoms referred to ; physical ex- ertion must be superadded. After a few fitful efforts to dispel the gloom, the sun resigned the dominion to the dense fog and the descending snow, which now prevented our seeing more than 15 or 20 paces in any direction. The temperature of the crags at the summit, which had been shone upon by the un- clouded sun during the earlier portion of the day, was 60 Fahr. ; hence the snow melted instantly wherever it came in contact with the rock. But some of it fell upon my felt hat, which had been placed to shelter the boiling- water apparatus, and this presented the most remarkable and beautiful appearance. The fall of snow was in fact a shower of frozen flowers. All of them were six-leaved ; some of the leaves threw out lateral ribs like ferns, some were rounded, others arrowy and serrated, some were close, others reticulated, but there was no deviation from 9 130 "FROZEN FLOWERS." [1858. the six-leaved type. Nature seemed determined to make us some compensation for the loss of all prospect, and thus showered down upon us those lovely blossoms of the frost ; and had a spirit of the mountain inquired my choice, the view, or the frozen flowers, I should have hesitated before giving up that exquisite vegetation. It was wonderful to think of, as well as beautiful to behold. Let us imagine the eye gifted with a microscopic power sufficient to enable it to see the molecules which com- posed these starry crystals ; to observe the solid nucleus formed and floating in the air ; to see it drawing towards it its allied atoms, and these arranging themselves as if they moved to music, and ended by rendering that music concrete. Surely such an exhibition of power, such an apparent demonstration of a resident intelligence in what we are acustomed to call " brute matter," would appear perfectly miraculous. And yet the reality would, if we could see it, transcend the fancy. If the Houses of Par- liament were built up by the forces resident in their own bricks and lithologic blocks, and without the aid of hod- man or mason, there would be nothing intrinsically more wonderful in the process than in the molecular architec- ture which delighted us upon the summit of Monte Rosa. Twice or thrice had my guide warned me that we must think of descending, for the snow continued to fall heavily, and the loss of our track would be attended with imminent peril. We therefore packed up, and clambered downward among the crags of the summit. We soon left these be- hind us, and as we stood once more upon the kamm, look- ing into the gloom beneath, an avalanche let loose from the side of an adjacent mountain shook the air with its thunder. We could not see it, could form no estimate of its distance, could only hear its roar, which, coining __ to us through the darkness, had an undefinable element of horror in it. Lauener remarked, " I never hear those 1858.] STARTLING AVALANCHE. 131 things without a shudder; the memory of my brother comes back to me at the same time." His brother, who was the best climber in the Oberland, had been literally broken to fragments by an avalanche on the slopes of the Jungfrau. We had been separate coming up, each having trusted to himself, but the descent was more perilous, because it is more difficult to fix the heel of the boot than the toe se- curely in the ice. Lauener was furnished with a rope, which he now tied round my waist, and forming a noose at the other end, he slipped it over his arm. This to me was a new mode of attachment. Hitherto my guides in dangerous places had tied the ropes round their waists also. Simond had done it on Mont Blanc, and Bennen on the Finsteraarhorn, proving thus their willingness to share my fate whatever that might be. But here Lauener had the power of sending me adrift at any moment, should his own life be imperilled. I told him that his mode of attach- ment was new to me, but he assured me that it would give him more power in case of accident. I did not see this at the time ; but neither did I insist on his attaching himself in the usual way. It could neither be called anger nor pride, but a warm flush ran through me as I remarked, that I should take good care not to test his power of holding me. I believe I wronged my guide by the supposition that he made the arrangement with refer- ence to his own safety, for all I saw of him afterwards proved that he would at any time have risked his life to save mine. The flush however did me good, by displacing every trace of anxiety, and the rope, I confess, was also a source of some comfort to me. We descended the kamm, I going first. " Secure your footing before you move," was my guide's constant exhortation, " and make your staff firm at each step." We were sometimes quite close upon the rim of the kamm on the Lyskamm side, and we 132 SPLENDID BLUE OF THE SNOW. [1858..- also followed the depressions which marked our track along the cornice. This I now tried intentionally, and drove the handle of my axe through it once or twice. At two places in descending we were upon the solid ice, and these were some of the steepest portions of the kamm. They were undoubtedly perilous, and the utmost caution was necessary in fixing the staff and securing the footing. These however once passed, we felt that the chief danger was over. We reached the termination of the edge, and ' although the snow continued to fall heavily, and obscure everything, we knew that our progress afterwards was se- cure. There was pleasure in this feeling ; it was an agree- able variation of that grim mental tension to which I had been previously wound up, but which in itself was by no means disagreeable. I have already noticed the colour of the fresh snow upon the summit of the Stelvio pass. Since I observed it there it has been my custom to pay some attention to this point at all great elevations. This morning, as I ascended Monte Rosa, I often examined the holes made in the snow by our batons, but the light which issued from them was scarcely perceptibly blue. Now, however, a deep layer of fresh snow overspread the mountain, and the effect was magnifi- cent. Along the kamm I was continually surprised and delighted by the blue gleams which issued from the broken or perforated stratum of new snow ; each hole made by the staff was filled with a light as pure, and nearly as deep, as that of tho unclouded firmament. ( When we reached the bottom of the kamm, Lauener came to the front, and tramped before me. As his feet rose out of the snow, and shook the latter off in fragments, sudden and wonderful gleams of blue light flashed from them. Doubtless the blue of the sky has much to do with mountain colouring, but in the present instance not only was there no blue sky, but the air was so thick with fog and descending snow- 1858] STIFLING HEAT. 138 flakes, that we could not see twenty yards in advance of us. A thick fog, which wrapped the mountain quite closely, now added its gloom to the obscurity caused by the falling snow. Before we reached the base of the mountain the fog became thin, and the sun shone through it. There was not a breath of air stirring, and, though we stood ankle-deep in snow, the heat surpassed anything of the kind I had ever felt : it was the dead suifocating warmth of the interior of an oven, which encompassed us on all sides, and from which there seemed no escape. Our own motion through the air, however, cooled us con- siderably. We found the snow-bridges softer than in the morning, and consequently needing more caution ; but we encountered no real difficulty among them. Indeed, it is amusing to observe the indifference with which a snow-roof is often broken through, and a traveller im- mersed to the waist in the jaws of a fissure. The effort at recovery is instantaneous : half instinctively hands and knees are driven into the snow, and rescue is immediate. Fair glacier work was now before us; after which we reached the opposite mountain slope, which we ascended, and then went down the flank of the Biffelberg to our ho- tel. The excursion occupied us eleven and a half hours. (19.) ON the afternoon of the llth I made an attempt alone to ascend the Riffelhorn, and attained a considerable height; but I attacked it from the wrong side, and the fading light forced me to retreat. I found some agreeable people at the hotel on my return. One clergyman especially, with a clear complexion, good digestion, and bad lungs of free, hearty, and genial manner made himself ex- tremely pleasant to us all. He appeared to bubble over 134 A DIFFICULT DESCENT. [1858. with enjoyment, and with him and others on the morning of the 13th I walked to the Gorner Grat, as it lay on the way to my work. We had a glorious prospect from the summit: indeed, the assemblage of mountains, snow, and ice here within view is perhaps without a rival in the world.* I shouldered my axe, and saying " Good-bye " moved away from my companions. " Are you going ? " exclaimed the clergyman. " Give me one grasp of your hand before we part." This was the signal for a grasp all round ; and the hearty human kindness which thus showed itself contrib- uted that day to make my work pleasant to me. We proceeded along the ridge of the Rothe Kiinim to a point which commanded a fine view of the glacier. The ice had been over these heights in ages past, for, although lichens covered the surfaces of the old rocks, they did not disguise the grooves and scratchings. The surface of the glacier was now about a thousand feet below us, and this it was our desire to attain. To reach it we had to descend a succession of precipices, which in general were weathered and rugged, but here and there, where the rock was durable, were fluted and grooved. Once or twice indeed we had nothing to cling to but the little ridges thus formed. We had to squeeze ourselves through narrow tr fissures, and often to get round overhanging ledges, where our main trust was in our feet, bat where these had only ledges an inch or so in width to rest upon. These cases were to me the most unpleasant of all, for they compelled the arms to take a position which, if the footing gave way, would necessitate a wrench, for which I entertain consider- able abhorrence. We came at length to a gorge by which the mountain is rent from top to bottom, and into which we endeavoured to descend. We worked along its rim for * In 1858 Mr. E. W. Cooke made a pencil-sketch of this splendid pano- rama, which is the best and truest that I have yet seen. 1858.] SINGULAK ICE-CAVE. 135 a time, but found its smooth faces too deep. We retreated ; Lauener struck into another track, and while he tested it I sat down near some grass tufts, which flourished on one of the ledges, and found the temperature to be as follows : Temperature of rock . . 42 C. Of air an inch above the rock . 32 Of air a foot from rock . . 22 Of grass 25 The first of these numbers does not fairly represent the temperature of the rock, as the thermometer could be in contact with it only at one side at a time. It was differ- ences such as these between grass and stone, producing a mixed atmosphere of different densities, that weakened the sound of the falls of the Orinoco, as observed and explained by Humboldt. By a process of " trial and error " we at length reached the ice, after two hours had been spent in the effort to disentangle ourselves from the crags. The glacier is forcibly thrust at this place against the projecting base of the mountain, and the structure of the ice corre- spondingly developed. Crevasses also intersect the ice, and the blue veins cross them at right angles. I as- cended the glacier to -a region where the ice was com- pressed and greatly contorted, and thought that in some cases I could see the veins crossing the lines of stratifi- cation. Once my guide drew my attention to what he called " ein sonderbares Loch." On one of the slopes an archway was formed which appeared to lead into the body of the glacier. We entered it, and explored the cavern to its end. The walls were of transparent blue ice, singularly free from air-bubbles ; but where the roof of the cavern was thin enough to allow the sun to shine feebly through it, the transmitted light was of a pink colour. My guide 136 STRUCTURE AND STRATA. [1858. expressed himself surprised at das " rothliche Schein." At one place a plate of ice had been placed like a ceiling across the cavern ; but owing to lateral squeezing it had been broken so as to form a V . I found some air-bubbles in this ice, and in all cases they were associated with blebs of water. A portion of the " ceiling," indeed, was very full of bubbles, and was at some places reduced, by internal liquefaction, to a mere skeleton of ice, with water- cells between its walls. High up the glacier (towards the old Weissthor) the horizontal stratification is everywhere beautifully shown. I drew my guide's attention to it, and he made the re- mark that the perfection of the lower ice was due to the pressure of the layers above it. " The snow by degrees compressed itself to glacier." As we approached one of the tributaries on the Monte Rosa side, where great pres- sure came into play, the stratification appeared to yield and the true structure to cross it at those places where it had yielded most. As the place of greatest pressure was approached, the bedding disappeared more and more, and a clear vertical structure was finally revealed. 1858.] GENERATION OF CLOUDS. 137 THE GORNER GRAT AND THE RIFFELHORN. MAGNETIC PHENOMENA. (20.) AT an early hour on Saturday, the 14th of August, I heard the servant exclaim, " Das Wetter ist ivunder- schon ; " which good news caused me to spring from my bed and prepare to meet the morn. The range of sum- mits at the opposite side of the valley of St. Nicholas was at first quite clear, but as the sun ascended light cumuli formed round them, increasing in density up to a certain point ; below these clouds the air of the valley was trans- parent ; above them the air of heaven was still more so ; and thus they swung midway between heaven and earth, ranging themselves in a level line along the necks of the mountains. It might be supposed that the presence of the sun heating the air would tend to keep it more transparent, by increasing its capacity to dissolve all visible cloud ; and this indeed is the true action of the sun. But it is not the only action. His rays, as he climbed the eastern heaven, shot more and more deeply into the valley of St. Nicholas, the moisture of which rose as invisible vapour, remaining unseen as long as the air possessed sufficient warmth to keep it in the vaporous state. High up, however, the cold crags, which had lost their heat by radiation the night before, acted like condensers upon the ascending vapour, and caused it to curdle into visible fog. The current, however, continued ascensional, and the clouds were slowly lifted above the tallest peaks, where they arranged themselves in fantastic forms, shift- ing and changing shape as they gradually melted away. 138 THE ROCKS WARMED. [1858. One peak stood like a field-officer with his cap raised above his head, others sent straggling cloud-balloons up- wards ; but on watching these outlyers they were grad- ually seen to disappear. At first they shone like snow in the sunlight, but as they became more attenuated they changed colour, passing through a dull red to a dusky purple hue, until finally they left no trace of their ex- istence. As the day advanced, warming the rocks, the clouds wholly disappeared, and a hyaline air formed the setting of both glaciers and mountains. I climbed to the Gorner Grat to obtain a general view of the surrounding scene. Looking towards the origin of the Gorner glacier the view was bounded by a wide col, upon which stood two lovely rounded eminences enamelled with snow of perfect purity. They shone like burnished silver in the sunlight, as if their surfaces had been melted and recongealed to frosted mirrors from which the rays were flung. To the right of these were the bounding crags of Monte Rosa, and then the body of the mountain itself, with its crest of crag and coat of snows. To the right of Monte Rosa, and almost rivalling it in height, was the vast mass of the Lyskamm, a rough and craggy mountain, to whose ledges clings the snow which cannot grasp its steeper walls, sometimes leaning over them in impending preci- pices, which often break, and send wild avalanches into the space below. Between the Lyskamm and Monte Rosa lies a large wide valley, into which both mountains pour their snows, forming there the Western glacier of Monte Rosa, a noble ice stream, which from its mag- nitude and permanence deserves to impose its name upon the trunk glacier. It extends downwards from the col which unites the two mountains ; riven and broken at some places, but at others stretching white and pure down to its snow-line, where the true glacier emerges from 1858.] SCENE FROM THE CORNER GRAT. 139 the neve. From the rounded shoulders of the Twin Castor a glacier descends, at first white and shining, then sud- denly broken into faults, fissures, and precipices, which are afterwards repaired, and the glacier joins that of Monte Rosa before the junction of the latter with the trunk stream. Next came a boss of rock, with a secondary glacier clinging to it as if plastered over it, and after it the Schwarze glacier, bounded on one side by the Breithorn, and on the other by the Twin Pollux. This glacier is of considerable magnitude. Over its upper portion rise the Twin eminences, pure and white ; then follows a smooth and undulating space, after passing which the neve is torn up into a collection of peaks and chasms ; these, however, are mended lower down, and the glacier moves smoothly and calmly to meet its brothers in the main valley. Next comes the Trifti glacier,* embraced on all sides by the rocky arms of the Breithorn ; its mass is not very great, but it descends in a graceful sweep, and exhibits towards its extremity a succession of beautiful bands. After- wards we have the glacier of the Petit Mont Cervin and those of St. Theodule, which latter are the last that empty their frozen cargos into the valley of the Gorner. All the glaciers here mentioned are welded together to a common trunk which squeezes itself through the narrow defile at the base of the Riffelhorn. Soon afterwards the moraines become confused, the glacier drops steeply to its termina- tion, and ploughs up the meadows in front of it with its irresistible share. In a line with the Riffelhorn, and rising over the latter so high as to make it almost vanish by comparison, was the Titan obelisk of the Matterhorn, from the base of which the Furgge glacier struggles downwards. On the other side are the Zmutt glacier, the Schonbuhl, and the * I take this name from Studer's map. Sometimes, however, I have called it the " Breithorn glacier." 140 COMPASS AT FAULT. [1858. Hochwang, from the Dent Blanche ; the Gabelhorn and Trift glaciers, from the summits which bear those names. Then come the glaciers of the Weisshorn. Describing a curve still farther to the right, we alight on the peaks of the Mischabel, dark and craggy precipices from this side, though from the ^Eggischhorn they appear as cones of snow. Sweeping by the Alphubel, the Allaleinhorn, the Rympfischorn, and Strahlhorn all of them majestic we reach the pass of the Weissthor, and the Cima di Jazzi. This completes the glorious circuit within the ob- server's view. I placed my compass upon a piece of rock to find the bearing of the Gorner glacier, and was startled at seeing the sun and it at direct variance. What the sun declared to be north, the needle affirmed to be south. I at first supposed that the maker had placed the S where the N ought to be, and vice versa. On shifting my position, however, the needle shifted also, and I saw immediately that the effect was due to the rock of the Grat. Some- times one end of the needle dipped forcibly, at other places it whirled suddenly round, indicating an entire change of polarity. The rock was evidently to be regarded as an assemblage of magnets, or as a single magnet full of " consequent points." A distance of transport not ex- ceeding an inch was, in some cases, sufficient to reverse the position of the needle. I held the needle between the two sides of a long fissure a foot wide. The needle set along- the fissure at some places, while at others it set across it. Sometimes a little jutting knob would attract the north end of the needle, while a closely ad- jacent little knob would forcibly repel it, and attract the south end. One extremity of a ledge three feet long was north magnetic, the other end was south magnetic, while a neutral point existed midway between both, the ledge having therefore the exact polar arrangement of an 1858.] MAGNETISM OF ROCKS. 141 ordinary bar-magnet. At the highest point of the rock the action appeared to be most intense, but I also found an energetic polarity in a mass at some distance below the summit. Remembering that Professor Forbes had noticed some peculiar magnetic effect upon the Riffelhorn, I resolved to ascend it. Descending from the Grat, we mounted the rocks which form the base of the horn ; these are soft and soapy from the quantity of mica which they contain ; the higher rocks of the horn are, however, very dense and hard. The ascent is a pleasant bit of mountain practice. We climbed the walls of rock, and wound round the ledges, seeking the assailable points. I tried the magnetic condi- tion of the rocks as we ascended, and found it in general feeble. In other respects the Riffelhorn is a most remark- able mass. The ice of the Gorner glacier of former ages, which rose hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet above its present level, encountered the horn in its descent, and was split by the latter, a diversion of the ice along the sides of the peak being the consequence. Portions of the vertical walls of the horn are polished by this action as if they had come from the hands of a lapidary, and the scratchings are as sharp and definite as if drawn by points of steel. I never saw scratchings so perfectly preserved : the finest lines are as clear as the deepest, a consequence of the great density and durability of the rock. The latter evidently contains a good deal of iron, and its sur- face near the summit is of the rich brown red due to the peroxide of the metal. When we fairly got among the precipices we left our hatchets behind us, trusting subse- quently to our hands and feet alone. Squeezing, creep- ing, clinging, and climbing, in due time we found our- selves upon the summit of the horn. A pile of stones had been erected near the point where we gained the top. I examined the stones of this pile, 142 ASCENT OF THE RIFFELHORN. [1858. and found them strongly polar. The surrounding rocks also showed a violent action, the needle oscillating quickly, and sometimes twirling swiftly round upon a slight change of position. The fragments of rock scattered about were also polar. Long ledges shewed north magnetism for a considerable length, and again for an equal length south magnetism. Two parallel masses separated from each other by a fissure, showed the same magnetic distribution. While I was engaged at one end of the horn, Lauener wandered to the other, on which stood two or three hommes de pierres. He was about disturbing some of the stones, when a yell from me surprised him. In fact, the thought had occurred to me that the magnetism of the horn had been developed by lightning striking upon it, and my desire was to examine those points which were most exposed to the discharge of the atmospheric electri- city ; hence my shout to my guide to let the stones alone. I worked towards the other end of the horn, examining the rocks in my way. Two weathered prominences, which seemed very likely recipients of the lightning, acted vio- lently upon the needle. I sometimes descended a little way, and found that among the rocks below the summit the action was greatly enfeebled. On reaching another very prominent point, I found its extremity all north polar, but at a little distance was a cluster of consequent points, among which the transport of a few inches was sufficient to turn the needle round and round. The piles of stone at the Zermatt end of the horn did not seem so strongly polar as the pile at the other end, which was higher ; still a strong polar action was mani- fested at many points of the surrounding rocks. Having completed the examination of the summit, I descended the horn, and examined its magnetic condition as I went along. It seemed to me that the jutting prominences always exhibited the strongest action. I do not indeed 1858.] MAGNETISM OF THE HOEN. 143 remember any case in which a strong action did not ex- hibit itself at the ends of the terraces which constitute the horn. In all cases, however, the rock acted as a number of magnets huddled confusedly together, and not as if its entire mass was endowed with magnetism of one kind. On the evening of the same day I examined the lower spur of the Riffelhorn. Amid its fissures and gulleys one feels as if wandering through the ruins of a vast castle or fortification ; the precipices are so like walls, and the scratching and polishing so like what might be done by the hands of man. I found evidences of strong polar action in some of the rocks low down. In the same con- tinuous mass the action would sometimes exhibit itself over an area of small extent, while the remainder of the rock showed no appreciable action. Some of the boulders cast down from the summit exhibited a strong and varied polarity. Fig. 8 is a sketch of one of these ; the barbed end of each arrow repre- sents the north end of the needle, which assumed the various positions shown in the figure. Mid- way down the spur I lighted upon a trans- N verse wall of rock, which formed in earlier ages the boundary of a lateral outlet of the Gorner glacier. It was red and hard, weathered rough at some places, and polished smooth at others. The lines were drawn finely upon it, but its outer surface appeared to be peel- ing off like a crust ; the polished layer rested upon the rock like a kind of enamel. The action of the glacier appeared to resemble that of the break of a locomotive upon rails, both being cases of exfoliation brought about 144 THE MAGNETIC FORCE. [1858. by pressure and friction. This wall measured twenty- eight yards across, and one end of it, for a distance of ten or twelve yards, was all north polar ; the other end for a similar distance was south polar, but there was a pair of consequent points at its centre. To meet the case of my young readers, I will here say a few words about the magnetic force. The common magnetic needle points nearly north and south ; and if a bit of iron be brought near to either end of the needle, they will mutually attract each other. A piece of lead will not show this effect, nor will copper, gold, nor silver. Iron, in fact, is a magnetic metal, which the others are not. It is to be particularly observed, that the bit of iron attracts both ends of the needle when it is presented to them in succession ; and if a common steel sewing-needle be substituted for the iron, it will be seen that it also has the power of attracting both ends of the magnetic needle. But if the needle be rubbed once or twice along one end of a magnet, it will be found that one of its ends will afterwards repel a certain end of the magnetic needle and attract the other. By rubbing the needle on the magnet, we thus develop both attraction and repulsion, and this double action of the magnetic force is called its polarity ; thus the steel which was at first simply magnetic, is now magnetic and polar. It is the aim of persons making magnets, that each magnet should have but two poles, at its two ends ; but it is quite easy to develop in the same piece of steel sev- eral pairs of poles ; and if the magnetization be irregular, this is sometimes done when we wish to avoid it. These irregular poles are called consequent points. Now I want my young reader to understand that it is not only because the rocks of the Gorner Grat and Riffel- horn contain iron, that they exhibit the action which I have described. They are not only magnetic, as common 1358.] BEARINGS FROM THE RIFFELHORN. 145 iron is, but, like the magnetized steel needle, they are magnetic and polar. And these poles are irregularly dis- tributed like the " consequent points " to which I have referred, and this is the reason why I have used the term. Professor Forbes, as I have already stated, was the first to notice the effect of the Riffelhorn upon the magnetic needle, but he seems to have supposed that the entire mass of the mountain exercised " a local attraction " upon the needle; (upon which end he does not say). To en- able future observers to allow for this attraction, he took the bearing of several of the surrounding mountains from the Riffelhorn ; but it is very probable that had he changed his position a few inches, and perfectly certain had he changed it a few yards, he would have found a set of bearings totally different from those which he has recorded. The close proximity and irregular distribution of its con- sequent points would prevent the Riffelhorn from exerting any appreciable influence on a distant needle, as in this case the local poles would effectually neutralize each other. (21.) ON the morning of the 15th, the Riffelberg was swathed iii a dense fog, through which heavy rain showered inces- santly. Towards one o'clock the continuity of the gray mass was broken, and sky-gleams of the deepest blue were seen through its apertures ; these would close up again, and others open elsewhere, as if the fog were fighting for existence with the sun behind it. The sun, however, triumphed, the mountains came more and more into view, and finally the entire air was swept clear. I went up to the Gorner Grat in the afternoon, and exam- ined more closely the magnetism of its rocks ; here, as on the Riffelhorn, I found it most pronounced at the jutting 10 146 MONT CERVIN AS CLOUD-MAKER. [1858. prominences of the Grat. Can it be that the superior ex- posure is more favourable to the formation of the magnetic oxide of iron ? I secured a number of fragments, which I still possess, and which act forcibly upon a magnetic needle. The sun was near the western horizon, and I remained alone upon the Grat to see his last beams illuminate the mountains, which, with one exception, were without a trace of cloud. This exception was the Matterhorn, the appear- ance of which was extremely instructive. The obelisk appeared to be divided in two halves by a vertical line drawn from its summit half-way down, to the windward of which we had the bare cliffs of the mountain ; and to the left of it a cloud which appeared to cling tenaciously to the rocks. In reality, however, there was no clinging ; the condensed vapour incessantly got away, but it was ever renewed, and thus a river of cloud had been sent from the mountain over the valley of Aosta. The wind in fact blew lightly up the valley of St. Nicholas charged with moisture, and when the air that held it rubbed against the cold cone of the Matterhorn the vapour was chilled and precipitated in his lee. The summit seemed to smoke sometimes like a burning mountain ; for immediately after its generation, the fog was drawn away in long filaments by the wind. As the sun sank lower the ruddiness of his light augmented, until these filaments resembled streamers of flame. The sun sank deeper, the light was gradually withdrawn, and where it had entirely vanished it left the mountain like a desolate old man whose " hoary hair Stream'd like a meteor in the troubled air." For a moment after the sun had disappeared the scene was amazingly grand. The distant west was ruddy, co- pious gray smoke-wreaths were wafted from the moun- tains, while high overhead, in an atmospheric region which seemed perfectly motionless, floated a broad thin 1858.] CELLS IN THE ICE. 147 cloud, dyed with the richest iridescences. The colours were of the same character as those which I had seen upon the Aletschorn, being due to interference, and in point of splendour and variety far exceeded anything ever produced by the mere coloured light of the setting sun. On the 16th I was early upon the glacier. It had frozen hard during the night, and the partially liberated streams flowed, in many cases, over their own ice. I took some clear plates from under the water, and found in them numerous liquid cells, each associated with an air-bubble or a vacuous spot. The most common shape of the cells was a regular hexagon, but there were all forms between the perfect hexagon and the perfect circle. Many cells had also crimped borders, intimating that their primitive form was that of a flower with six leaves. A plate taken from ice which was defended from the sunbeams by the shadow of a rock had no such cells ; so that those that I observed were probably due to solar radiation. My first aim was to examine the structure of the Gb'rnerhorn glacier, which descends the breast of Monte Rosa until it is abruptly cut off by the great Western gla- cier of the mountain. Between them is a moraine which is at once terminal as regards the former, and lateral as regards the latter. The ice is veined vertically along the moraine, the direction of the structure being parallel to the latter. I ascended the glacier, and found, as I re- treated from the place where the thrust was most violent, that the structure became more feeble. From the glacier I passed to the rocks called aufder Platte, so as to obtain a general view of its terminal portion. The gradual per- fecting of the structure as the region of pressure was ap- proached was very manifest : the ice at the end seemed to wrinkle up in obedience to the pressure, the structural furrows, from being scarcely visible, became more and more decided, and the lamination underneath correspond- 148 STRUCTURE OF THE ICE. [1858. ingly pronounced, until it finally attained a state of great perfection. I now quitted the rocks and walked straight across the Western glacier of Monte Rosa to its centre, where I found the structure scarcely visible. I next faced the Gb'r- ner Grat, and walked down the glacier towards the mo- raine which divides it from the Gorner glacier. The mechanical conditions of the ice here are quite evident ; each step brought me to a place of greater pressure, and also to a place of more highly developed structure, until finally, near to the moraine itself, and running parallel to it, a magnificent lamination was developed. Here the superficial groovings could be traced to great distances, and beside the moraine were boulders poised on pedestals of ice through which the blue veins ran. At some places the ice had been weathered into Iamina3 not more than a line in thickness. I now recrossed the Monte Rosa glacier to its junction with the Schwartze glacier, which descends between the Twins and Breithorn. The structure of the Monte Rosa glacier is here far less pronounced than at the other side, and the pressure which it endures is also manifestly less ; the structure of the Schwartze glacier is fairly de- veloped, being here parallel to its moraine. The cliffs of the Breithorn are much exposed to weathering action, and boulders are copiously showered down upon the adjacent ice. Between the Schwartze glacier and the glacier which descends from the breast of the Breithorn itself these blocks ride upon a spine of ice, and form a moraine of grand proportions. From it a fine view of the glacier is attainable, and the gradual development of its structure as the region of maximum pressure is approached is very plain. A number of gracefully curved undulations sweep across the Breithorn glacier, which are squeezed more closely together as the moraine is approached. All the gla- 1858.] TRIBUTARIES EXPLORED. 149 ciers that descend from the flanking mountains of the Gorner valley are suddenly turned aside where they meet the great trunk stream, and are reduced by the pressure to narrow stripes of ice separated from each other by parallel moraines. I ascended the Breithorn glacier to the base of an ice- fall, on one side of which I found large crumples produced by the pressure, the veined structure being developed at right angles to the direction of the latter. No such struc- ture was visible above this place. The crumples were cut by fissures, perpendicular to which the blue veins ran. I now quitted the glacier, and clambered up the adjacent alp, from which a fine view of the general surface was attainable. As in the case of the Gornerhorn glacier, the gradual perfecting of the structure was very manifest ; the dirt, which first irregularly scattered over the surface, gradually assumed a striated appearance, and became more and more decided as the moraine was approached. I now descended from the alp, and endeavored to meas- ure some of the undulations ; proceeding afterwards to the junction of the Breithorn glacier with that of St. Theodule. The end of the latter appears to be crumpled by its thrust against the former, and the moraine between them, instead of being raised, runs along a hollow which is flanked by the crumples on either side. The Breithorn glacier became more and more attenuated, until finally it actually vanished under its own moraines. On the sides of the crevasses, by which the The'odule glacier is here intersected, I thought I could plainly see two systems of veins cutting each other at an angle of fifteen or twenty degrees. Reaching the Gorner glacier, at a place where its dislocation was very great, I proceeded down it past the Riffelhorn, to a point where it seemed possible to scale the opposite mountain wall. Here I crossed the glacier, treading with the utmost caution along the combs of ice, 150 TEMPTATION. [1858. and winding through the entanglement of crevasses until the spur of the Kiffelhorn was reached ; this I climbed to its summit, and afterwards crossed the Green Alp to our hotel. The foregoing good day's work was rewarded by a sound sleep at night. The tourists were called in succes- sion next morning, but after each call I instantly subsided into deep slumber, and thus healthily spaced out the interval of darkness. Day at length dawned and gradu- ally brightened. I looked at my watch and found it twenty minutes to six. My guide had been lent to a party of gentlemen who had started at three o'clock for the summit of Monte Rosa, and he had left with me a porter who undertook to conduct me to one of the adja- cent glaciers. But as I looked from my window the un- speakable beauty of the morning filled me with a longing to see the world from the top of Monte Rosa. I was in exceedingly good condition, could I not reach the sum- mit alone ? Trained and indurated as I had been, I felt that the thing was possible; at all events I could try, without attempting anything which was not clearly within my power. 1858.] A LIGHT SCRIP. 151 SECOND ASCENT OF MONTE ROSA, 1858. (22.) WHETHER my exercise be mental or bodily, I am always most vigorous when cool. During my student life in Germany, the friends who visited me always complained of the low temperature of my room, and here among the Alps it was no uncommon thing for me to wander over the glaciers from morning till evening in my shirt- sleeves. My object now was to go as light as possible, and hence I left my coat and neckcloth behind me. trusting to the sun and my own motion to make good the calorific waste. After breakfast I poured what remained of my tea into a small glass bottle, an ordinary demi-bouteille, in fact ; the waiter then provided me with a ham-sandwich, and, with my scrip thus frugally furnished, I thought the heights of Monte Rosa might be won. I had neither brandy nor wine, but I knew the immense amount of me- chanical force represented by four ounces of bread and ham, and I therefore feared no failure from lack of nutri- ment. Indeed, I am inclined to think that both guides and travellers often impair their vigour and render them- selves cowardly and apathetic by the incessant " refresh- ing " which they deem it necessary to indulge in on such occasions. The guide whom Lauener intended for me was at the door ; I passed him and desired him to follow me. This he at first refused to do, as he did not recognise me in my shirt-sleeves ; but his companions set him right, and he ran after me. I transferred my scrip to his shoulders, and led the way upward. Once or twice he insinuated that that was not the way to the Schwarze-see, and was probably perplexed by my inattention. From the summit of the 152 THE GUIDE EXPOSTULATES. [1858. ridge which bounds the Gorner glacier the whole grand panorama revealed itself, and on the higher slopes of Monte Rosa so high, indeed, as to put all hope of overtaking them, or even coming near them, out of the question a row of black dots revealed the company which had started at three o'clock from the hotel. They had made remark- ably good use of their time, and I was afterwards informed that the cause of this was the intense cold, which compelled them to keep up the proper supply of heat by increased exertion. I descended swiftly to the glacier, and made for the base of Monte Rosa, my guide following at some dis- tance behind me. One of the streams, produced by super- ficial melting, had cut for itself a deep wide channel in the ice ; it was not too wide for a spring, and with the aid of a run I cleared it and went on. Some minutes afterwards I could hear the voice of my companion exclaiming, in a tone of expostulation, " No, no, I won't follow you there." He however made a circuit, and crossed the stream ; I waited for him at the place where the Monte Rosa glacier joins the rock, " aufder Platte" and helped him down the ice-slope. At the summit of these rocks I again waited for him. He approached me with some excitement of manner, and said that it now appeared plain to him that I intended to ascend Monte Rosa, but that he would not go with me. I asked him to accompany me to the summit of the next cliff, which he agreed to do ; and I found him of some ser- vice to me. He discovered the faint traces of the party in advance, and, from his greater experience, could keep them better in view than I could. We lost them, however, near the base of the cliff at which we aimed, and I went on, choosing as nearly as I could remember the route followed by Lauener and myself a week previous, while my guide took another route, seeking for the traces. The glacier here is crevassed, and I was among the fissures some dis- tance in advance of my companion. Fear was manifestly 1858.] THE GUIDE HALTS. 153 getting the better of him, and he finally stood still, ex- claiming, " No man can pass there." At the same moment I discovered the trace, and drew his attention to it ; he approached me submissively, said that I was quite right, and declared his willingness to go on. We climbed the cliff, and discovered the trace in the snow above it. Here I transferred the scrip and telescope to my own shoulders, and gave my companion a cheque for five francs. He returned, and I went on alone. The sun and heaven were glorious, but the cold was nevertheless intense, for it had frozen bitterly the night before. The mountain seemed more noble and lovely than when I had last ascended it ; and as 1 climbed the slopes, crossed the shining cols, and rounded the vast snow-bosses of the mountain, the sense of being alone lent a new interest to the glorious scene. I followed the track of those who preceded me, which was that pursued by Lauener and myself a week previously. Once I devi- ated from it to obtain a glimpse of Italy over the saddle which stretches from Monte Rosa to the Lyskamm. Deep below me was the valley, with its huge and dislocated nevS, and the slope on which I hung was just sufficiently steep to keep the attention aroused without creating anx- iety. I prefer such a slope to one on which the thought of danger cannot be entertained. I become more weary upon a dead level, or in walking up such a valley as that, which stretches between Visp and Zermatt, than on a steep mountain-side. The sense of weariness is often no index to the expenditure of muscular force : the muscles may be charged with force, and, if the nervous excitant be feeble, the strength lies dormant, and we are tired without exertion. But the thought of peril keeps the mind awake, and spurs the muscles into action ; they move with alacrity and freedom, and the time passes swiftly and pleasantly. 154 LEFT ALONE. [1858. Occupied with my own thoughts as I ascended, I some- times unconsciously went too quickly, and felt the effects of the exertion. I then slackened my pace, allowing each limb an instant of repose as I drew it out of the snow, and found that in this way walking became rest. This is an illustration of the principle which runs throughout nature, to accomplish physical changes, time is neces- sary. Different positions of the limb require different molecular arrangements ; and to pass from one to the other requires time. By lifting the leg slowly and allow- ing it to fall forward by its own gravity, a man may get/ on steadily for several hours, while a very slight addition^ to this pace may speedily exhaust him. Of course the normal pace differs in different persons, but in all the power of endurance may be vastly augmented by the prudent outlay of muscular force. The sun had long shone down upon me with intense fervour, but I now noticed a strange modification of the light upon the slopes of snow. I looked upwards, and saw a most gorgeous exhibition of interference-colours A light veil of clouds had drawn itself between me anc the sun, and this was flooded with the most brilliant dyes Orange, red, green, blue all the hues produced by dif- fraction were exhibited in the utmost splendour. There seemed a tendency to form circular zones of colour round the sun, but the clouds were not sufficiently uniform to permit of this, and they were consequently broken into spaces, each steeped with the colour due to the condition of the cloud at the place. Three times during my ascent similar veils drew themselves across the sun, and at each pas- sage the splendid phenomena were renewed. As I reached the middle of the mountain an avalanche was let loose from the -sides of the Lyskamm; the thunder drew my eyes to the place : I saw the ice move, but it was only the tail of the avalanche ; still the volume of sound told me that it 1858.] GIDDINESS ON THE KAMM. 155 was a huge one. Suddenly the front of it appeared from behind a projecting rock, hurling its ice-masses with fury into the valley, and tossing its rounded clouds of ice-dust high into the atmosphere. A wild long-drawn sound, multiplied by echos, now descended from the heights above me. It struck me at first as a note of lamentation, and I thought that possibly one of the party which was now near the summit had gone over the precipice. On listening more attentively I found that the sound shaped itself into an English " hurrah ! " I was evidently near- ing the party, and on looking upwards I could see them, nit still at an immense height above me. The summit still rose before them, and I therefore thought the cheer )reinature. A precipice of ice was now in front of me, around which I wound to the right, and in a few minutes bund myself fairly at the bottom of the Kamm. I paused here for a moment, and reflected on the work )efore me. My head was clear, my muscles in perfect ;ondition, and I felt just sufficient fear to render me care- ul. I faced the Kamm, and went up slowly but surely, and soon heard the cheer which announced the arrival of ;he party at the summit of the mountain. It was a wild, weird, intermittent sound, swelling or falling as the echos reinforced or enfeebled it. In getting through the rocks which protrude from the snow at the base of the last spur of the mountain, I once had occasion to stoop my head, and, on suddenly raising it, my eyes swam as they rested on the unbroken slope of snow at my left. The sensation was akin to giddiness, but I believe it was chiefly lue to the absence of any object upon the snow upon which I could converge the axes of my eyes. Up to this Doint I had eaten nothing. I now unloosed my scrip, md had two mouthfuls of sandwich and nearly the whole )f the tea that remained. I found here that my load, ight as it was, impeded me. When fine balancing is 156 SCRIP LEFT BEHIND. [1858. necessary, the presence of a very light load, to which one is unaccustomed, may introduce an element of danger, and for this reason I here left the residue of my tea and sandwich behind me. A long long edge was now in front of me, sloping steeply upwards. As I commenced the ascent of this, the foremost of those whose cheer had reached me from the summit some time previously, appeared upon the top of the edge, and the whole party was seen immediately afterwards dangling on the Kamm. We mutually approached each other. Peter Bohren, a well-known Oberland guide, came first, and after him came the gentleman in his immediate charge. Then came other guides with other gentlemen, and last of all my guide, Lauener, with his strong right arm round the youngest of. the party. We met where a rock protruded through the snow. The cold smote my naked throat bittely, so to protect it I borrowed a handkerchief from Lauener, bade my new acquaintances good bye, and pro- ceeded upwards. I was soon at the place where the snow-ridge joins the rocks which constitute the crest of the mountain ; through these my way lay, every step I took augmenting my distance from all life, and increasing my sense of solitude. I went up arid down the cliffs as before, round ledges, through fissures, along edges of rock, over the last deep and rugged indentation, and up the rocks at its opposite side, to the summit. A world of clouds and mountains lay beneath m Switzerland, with its pomp of summits, was clear and grand ; Italy was also grand, but more than half obscured. Dark cumulus and dark crag vied in savagery, while al other places white snows and white clouds held equal rivalry. The scooped valleys of Monte Rosa itself were magnificent, all gleaming in the bright sunlight tossed and torn at intervals, and sending from their rents and walls the magical blue of the ice. Ponderous neves lay 1858.] ALONE ON THE SUMMIT. 157 upon the mountains, apparently motionless, but sug- gesting motion, sluggish, but indicating irresistible dynamic energy, which moved them slowly to their doom n the warmer valleys below. I thought of my position : t was the first time that a man had stood alone upon hat wild peak, and were the imagination let loose amid he surrounding agencies, and permitted to dwell upon he perils which separated the climber from his kind, I dare say curious feelings .might have been engendered. But I was prompt to quell all thoughts which might lessen my strength, or interfere with the calm application of it. Once indeed an accident made me shudder. While taking ;he cork from a bottle which is deposited on the top, and which contains the names of those who have ascended the mountain, my axe slipped out of my hand, and slid some hirty feet away from me. The thought of losing it made iiy flesh creep, for without it descent would be utterly mpossible. I regained it, and looked upon it with an affection which might be bestowed upon a living thing, or it was literally my staff of life under the circum- stances. One look more over the cloud-capped mountains of Italy, and I then turned my back upon them, and commenced the descent. The brown crags seemed to look at me with a kind of riendly recognition, and, with a surer and firmer feeling ;han I possessed on ascending, I swung myself from crag ;o crag and from ledge to ledge with a velocity which surprised myself. I reached the summit of the Kamm, and saw the party which I had passed an hour and a half oefore, emerging from one of the hollows of the moun- tain ; they had escaped from the edge which now lay be- tween them and me. The thought of the possible loss of nay axe at the summit was here forcibly revived, for without it I dared not take a single step. My first care to anchor it firmly in the snow, so as to enable it 158 THE AXE SLIPS. [1858. to bear at times nearly the whole weight of my body. In some places, however, the anchor had but a loose hold ; the " cornice " to which I have already referred became granular, and the handle of the axe went through it up to the head, still, however, remaining loose. Some amount of trust had thus to be withdrawn from the staff and placed in the limbs. A curious mixture of care- lessness and anxiety sometimes fills the mind on such oc- casions. I often caught myself humming a verse of a frivolous song, but this was mechanical, and the sub- stratum of a man's feelings under such circumstances is real earnestness. The precipice to my left was a continual preacher of caution, and the slope to my right was hardly less impressive. I looked down the former but rarely, and sometimes descended for a considerable time without looking beyond my own footsteps. The power of a thought was illustrated on one of these occasions. I had descended with extreme slowness and caution for some time, when looking over the edge of the cornice I saw a row of point- ed rocks at some distance below me. These I felt must receive me if I slipped over, and I thought how before reaching them I might so break my fall as to arrive at them unkilled. This thought enabled me to double my speed, and as long as the spiky barrier ran parallel to my track I held my staff in one hand, and contented myself with a slight pressure upon it. I came at length to a place where the edge was solid ice, which rose to the level of the cornice, the latter appearing as if merely stuck against it. A groove ran between the ice and snow, and along this groove I marched until the cornice became unsafe, and I had to betake myself to the ice. The place was really perilous, but, encouraging myself by the reflection that it would not last long, I care- fully and deliberately hewed steps, causing them to dip a little inward, so as to afford a purchase for the heel of my 1858.] ACCIDENT ON THE KAMM. 159 boot, never forsaking one till the next was ready, and never wielding my hatchet until my balance was secured. I was soon at the bottom of the Kamm, fairly out of danger, and, full of glad vigour, I bore swiftly down upon the party in advance of me. It was an easy task to me to fuse myself amongst them as if I had been an old acquaintance, and we joyfully slid, galloped, and rolled together down the residue of the mountain. The only exception was the young gentleman in Lauener' s care. A day or two previously he had, I believe, injured himself in crossing the Gemmi, and long before he reached the summit of Monte Rosa his knee swelled, and lie walked with great difficulty. But he persisted in ascending, and Lauener, seeing his great courage, thought it a pity to leave him behind. I have stated that a portion of the Kamm was solid ice. On descending this, Mr. F.'s footing gave way, and he slipped forward. Lauener was forced to accompany him, for the place was too steep and slippery to permit of their motion being checked. Both were on the point of going over the Lyskamm side of the mountain, where they would have indubitably been dashed to pieces. " There was no escape there," said Lauener, in describing the incident to me sub- sequently, " but I saw a possible rescue at the other side, so I sprang to the right, forcibly swinging my companion round ; but in doing so, the baton tripped me up ; we both fell, and rolled rapidly over each other down the incline. I knew that some precipices were in advance of us, over which we should have gone, so, releasing myself from my companion, I threw myself in front of him, stopped myself with my axe, and thus placed a barrier before him." After some vain efforts at sliding down the slopes on a baton, in which practice I was fairly beaten by some of my new friends, I attached myself to the invalid, and walked with him and Lauener homewards. Had I gone 160 DANGER OF CLIMBING ALONE. [1858. forward with the foremost of the party, I should have completed the expedition to the summit and back in a little better than nine hours. I think it right to say one earnest word in con- nexion with this ascent : and the more so as I believe a notion is growing prevalent that half what is said and written about the dangers of the Alps is mere humbug. No doubt exaggeration is not rare, but I would emphat- ically warn my readers against acting upon the supposi- tion that it is general. The dangers of Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and other mountains, are real, and, if not properly provided against, may be terrible. I have been much accustomed to be alone upon the glaciers, but sometimes, even when a guide was in front of me, I have felt an ex- treme longing to have a second one behind me. Less than two good ones I think an arduous climber ought not to have ; and if climbing without guides were to become habitual, deplorable consequences would assuredly sooner or later ensue. (23.) THE 18th of August I spent upon the Furgge glacier at the base of Mont Cervin, and what it taught me shall be stated in another place. The evening of this day was signalized by the pleasant acquaintances which it gave me. It was my intention to cross the Weissthor on the morning of the 19th, but thunder, lightning, and heavy rain opposed the project, and with two friends I descended, amid pitiless rain, to Zermatt. Next day I walked by way of Stalden to Saas, where I made the acquaintance of Herr Imseng, the Cure", and on the 21st ascended to the Distel Alp. Near to this place the Allelein glacier pushes its huge terminus right across the valley and dams up the 1858.] ASCENT OF A BOULDER. 161 streams descending from the mountains higher up, thus giving birth to a dismal lake. At one end of this stands the Mattmark hotel, which was to be my head-quarters for a few days. I reached the place in good company. Near to the hotel are two magnificent boulders of green serpentine, which have been lodged there by one of the lateral glaciers ; and two of the ladies desiring to ascend one of these rocks, a friend and myself helped them to the top. The thing was accomplished in a very spirited way. Indeed the general contrast, in regard to energy, between the maidens of the British Isles and those of the Continent and of America is extraordinary. Surely those who talk of this country being in its old age overlook the physical vigour of its sons and daughters. They are strong, but from a combination of the greatest forces we may obtain a small resultant, because the forces may act in opposite direc- tions and partly neutralize each other. Herein, in fact, lies Britain's weakness ; it is strength ill directed ; and is indicative rather of the perversity of young blood than of the precision of mature years. Immediately after this achievement I was forsaken by my friends, and remained the only occupant of the hotel. A dense gray cloud gradually filled the entire atmosphere, from which the rain at length began to gush in torrents. The scene from the windows of the hotel was of the most dismal character; the rain also came through the roof, and dripped from the ceiling to the floor. I endeavoured to make a fire, but the air would not let the smoke of the pine-logs ascend, and the biting of the hydro- carbons was excruciating to the eyes. On the whole, the cold was preferable to the smoke. During the night the rain changed to snow, and on the morning of the 22nd all the mountains were thickly covered. The gray delta, through which a river of many arms ran 11 162 DISMAL QUABTEKS. [1858. into the Mattmark See, was hidden ; against some of the windows of the salle a manger the snow was also piled, obscuring more than half their light. I had sent my guide to Yisp, and two women and myself were the only occu- pants of the place. It was extremely desolate. I felt, moreover, the chill of Monte Rosa in my throat, and the conditions were not favourable to the cure of a cold. On the 23rd the Allelein glacier was unfit for work ; I therefore ascended to the summit of the Monte Moro, and found the Valais side of the pass in clear sunshine, while impenetrable fog met us on the Italian side. I examined the colour of the freshly fallen snow ; it was not an ordinary blue, and was even more transparent than the blue of the firmament. When the snow was broken the light flashed forth ; when the staff was dug into the snow and withdrawn, the blue gleam appeared ; when the staff lay in a hole, although there might be a sufficient space all round it, the coloured light refused to show itself. My cough kept me awake on the night of the 23rd, and my cold was worse next day. I went upon the Allelein glacier, but found myself by no means so sure a climber as usual. The best guides find that their powers vary ; they are not equally competent on all days. I have heard a celebrated Chamouni guide assert that a man's morale is different on different days. The morale in my case had a physical basis, and it probably has so in all. The Alle- lein glacier, as I have said, crosses the valley and abuts against the opposite mountain ; here it is forced to turn aside, and in consequence of the thrust and bending it is crumpled and crevassed. The wall of the Mattmark See is a fine glacier section : looked at from a distance, the ridges and fissures appear arranged like a fan. The structure of the crumpled ice varies from the vertical to the horizon- tal, and the ridges are sometimes split along the planes of 1858.] THE VAULT OF THE ALLELEIN. 163 structure. The aspect of this portion of the glacier from some of the adjacent heights is exceedingly interesting. On the morning of the 25th I had two hours' clamber- ing over the mountains before breakfast, and traced the action of ancient glaciers to a great height. The valley of Saas in this respect rivals that of Hasli ; the flu tings and polishings being on the grandest scale. After break- fast I went to the end of the Allelein glacier, where the Saas Visp river rushes from it : the vault was exceedingly fine, being composed of concentric arches of clear blue ice. I spent several hours here examining the intimate struc- ture of the ice, and found the vacuum disks, which I shall describe at another place, of the greatest service to me. As at Rosenlaui and elsewhere, they here taught me that the glacier was composed of an aggregate of small frag- ments, each of which had a definite plane of crystalliza- tion. Where the ice was partially weathered the surfaces of division between the fragments could be traced through the coherent mass, but on crossing these surfaces the di- rection of the vacuum disks changed, indicating a similar change of the planes of crystallization. The blue veins of the glacier went through its component fragments irre- spective of these planes. Sometimes the vacuum disks were parallel to the veins, sometimes across them, some- times oblique to them. Several fine masses of ice had fallen from the arch upon its floor, and these were disintegrated to the core. A kick, or a stroke of an axe, sufficed to shake masses almost a cubic yard in size into fragments varying not much on either side of a cubic inch. The veining was finely pre- served on the concentric arches of the vault, and some of them apparently exhibited its abolition, or at least confu- sion, and fresh development by new conditions of pressure. The river being deep and' turbulent this day, to reach its opposite side I had to climb the glacier and cross over 164 AVALANCHE AT SAAS. [1858. the crown of its highest arch ; this enabled me to get quite in front of the vault, to enter it, and closely inspect those portions where the structure appeared to change. I afterwards ascended the steep moraine which lies between the Allelein and the smaller glacier to the left of it, passing to the latter at intervals to examine its struc- ture. I was at length stopped by the dislocated ice ; and from the heights I could count a system of seven dirt- bands, formed by the undulations on the surface of the glacier. On my return to the hotel, I found there a num- ber of well-known Alpine men who intended to cross the Adler Pass on the following day. Herr Imseng was there : he came to me full of enthusiasm, and asked me whether I would join him in an ascent of the Dom : we might imme- diately attack it, and he felt sure that we should succeed. The Dom is the highest of the Mischabel peaks, and is one of the grandest of the Alps. I agreed to join the Cure*, and with this understanding we parted for the night. Thursday, 26th August. A wild stormy morning after a wild and rainy night : the Adler Pass being impassable, the mountaineers returned, and Imseng informed me that the Dom must be abandoned. He gave me the statistics of an avalanche which had fallen in the valley some years before. Within the memory of man Saas had never been touched by an avalanche, but a tradition existed that such a catastrophe had once occurred. On the 14th of March, 1848, at eight o'clock in the morning, the Cure* was in his room, when he heard the cracking of pine-branches, and inferred from the sound that an avalanche was descending upon the village. It dashed in the windows of his house and filled his rooms with snow ; the sound it produced being sufficient to mask the crashing of the timbers of an adjacent house. Three persons were killed. On the 3rd of April, 1849, heavy snow fell at Saas ; the Cur6 waited until it had attained a depth of four feet, and then re- 1858.] THE FEE GLACIER. 165 treated to Fe*e. That night an avalanche descended, and in the line of its rush was a house in which five or six and twenty people had collected for safety : nineteen of them were killed. The Cur afterwards showed me the site of the house, and the direction of the avalanche. It passed through a pine wood ; and on expressing my surprise that the trees did not arrest it, he replied that the snow was " quite like dust," and rushed among the trees like so much water. To return from Fe to Saas on the day following he found it necessary to carry two planks. Kneeling upon one of them, he pushed the other forward, and transferred his weight to it, drawing the other after him and repeating the same act. The snow was like flour, and would not otherwise bear his weight. Seeing no prospect of fine weather, I descended to Saas on the afternoon of the 26th. I was the only guest at the hotel ; but during the evening I was gratified by the unexpected arrival of my friend Hirst, who was on his way over the Monte Moro to Italy. For the last five days it had been a struggle between the north wind and the south, each edging the other by turns out of its atmospheric bed, and producing copious precipitation ; but now the conflict was decided, the north had prevailed, and an almost unclouded heaven overspread the Alps. The few white fleecy masses that remained were good indications of the swift march of the wind in the upper air. My friend and I resolved to have at least one day's excursion together, and we chose for it the glacier of the Fe*e. Ascending the mountain by a well-beaten path, we passed a number of " Calvaries " filled with tattered saints and Virgins, and soon came upon the rim of a flattened bowl quite clasped by the mountains. In its centre was the little hamlet of Fe*e, round which were fresh green pastures, and beyond it the perpetual ice and snow. It was exceedingly picturesque, a scene of human beauty and industry where savagery 166 SNOW, VAPOUR, AND CLOUD. [1858. alone was to be expected. The basin had been scooped by glaciers, and as we paused at its entrance the rounded and fluted rocks were beneath our feet. The Alphubel and the Mischabel raised their crowns to heaven in front of us ; the newly fallen snow clung where it could to the precipitous crags of the Mischabel, but on the summits it was the sport of the wind. Sometimes it was borne straight upwards in long vertical striae ; sometimes the fibrous columns swayed to the right, sometimes to the left ; sometimes the motion on one of the summits would quite subside ; anon the white peak would appear suddenly to shake itself to dust, which it yielded freely to the wind. I could see the wafted snow gradually melt away, and again curdle up into true white cloud by precipitation ; this in its turn would be pulled asunder like carded wool, and reduced a second time to transparent vapour. In the middle of the ice of the Fe*e stands a green alp, not unlike the Jardin ; up this we climbed, halting at intervals upon its grassy knolls to inspect the glacier. I aimed at those places where on a priori grounds I should have thought the production of the veined structure most likely, and reached at length the base of a wall of rock from the edge of which long spears of ice depended. Here my friend halted, while Lauener and myself climbed the precipice, and ascended to the summit of the alp. The snow was deep at many places, and our immersions in oinseen holes very frequent. From the peak of the Fde Alp a most glorious view is obtained ; in point of gran- deur it will bear comparison with any in the Alps, and its seclusion gives it an inexpressible charm. We re- mained for half an hour upon the warm rock, and then descended. It was our habit to jump from the higher ledges into the deep snow below them, in which we wal- lowed as if it were flour ; but on one of these occasions I lighted on a stone, and the shock produced a curious effect 1858.] "A TERRIBLE HOLE." 16T upon my hearing. I appeared suddenly to lose the power of appreciating deep sounds, while the shriller ones were comparatively unimpaired. After I rejoined my friend it required attention on my part to hear him when he spoke to me. This continued until I approached the end of the glacier, when suddenly the babblement of streams, and a world of sounds to which I had been before quite deaf burst in upon me. The deafness was probably due to a strain of the tympanum, such as we can produce arti- ficially, and thus quench low sounds, while shrill ones are scarcely affected. I was anxious to quit Saas early next morning, but the Cure expressed so strong a wish to show us what he called a Schauderhaftes Loch a terrible hole which he had himself discovered, that -I consented to accompany him. We were joined by his assistant and the priest of Fe*e. The stream from the Fe glacier has cut a deep channel through the rocks, and along the right-hand bank of the stream we ascended. It was very rough with fallen crags and fallen pines, amid which we once or twice lost our way. At length we came to an aperture just sufficient to let a man's body through, and were informed by our con- ductor that our route lay along the little tunnel : he lay down upon his stomach and squeezed himself through it like a marmot. I followed him ; a second tunnel, in which, however, we could stand upright, led into a spa- cious cavern, formed by the falling together of immense slabs of rock which abutted against each other so as to form a roof. It was the very type of a robber den ; and when I remarked this, it was at once proposed to sing a verse from Schiller's play. The young clergyman had a powerful voice, he led and we all chimed in. " Ein frohes Leben fiihren wir, Ein Lcben roller Wonne. Der Wald 1st unser Nachtquartier, Bei Sturm and Wind hanthieren wir, ^ T)p.r TVTrmd ist nnsrfi SnnnA ." 168 SONG OF THE ROBBERS. [1858. Heir Imseng wore his black coat ; the others had taken theirs off, but they wore their clerical hats, black breeches and stockings. We formed a singular group in a singu- lar place, and the echoed voices mingled strangely with the gusts of the wind and the rush of the river. Soon after I parted from my friend, and descended the valley to Yisp, where I also parted with my guide. He had been with me from the 22nd of July to the 29th of August, and did his duty entirely to my satisfaction. He is an excellent iceman, and is well acquainted both with the glaciers of the Oberland and of the Yalais. He is strong and good-humoured, and were I to make another expedition of the kind I don't think that I should take any guide in the Oberland in preference to Christian Lauener. (24.) IT is a singular fact that as yet we know absolutely nothing of the winter temperature of any one of the high Alpine summits. No doubt it is a sufficient justification of our Alpine men, as regards their climbing, that they like it. This plain reason is enough ; and no man who ever ascended that " bad eminence," Primrose Hill, or climbed to Hampstead Heath for the sake of a freer hori- zon, can consistently ask a better. As regards physical science, however, the contributions of our mountaineers have as yet been nil, and hence, when we hear of the sci- entific value of their doings, it is simply amusing to the climbers themselves. I do not fear that I shall offend them in the least by my frankness in stating this. Their plea- sure is that of overcoming acknowledged difficulties, and of witnessing natural grandeur. But I would venture to urge that our Alpine men will not find their pleasure lessened by embracing a scientific object in their doings. They 1858.] CLIMBERS AND SCIENCE. 169 have the strength, the intelligence, and let them add to these the accuracy which physical science now demands, and they may contribute work of enduring value. Mr. Casella will gladly teach them the use of his minimum- thermometers ; and I trust that the next seven years will not pass without making us acquainted with the winter temperature of every mountain of note in Switzer- land.* I had thought of this subject since I first read the con- jectures of De Saussure on the temperature of Mont Blanc ; but in 1857 I met Auguste Balmat at the Jardin, and there learned from him that he entertained the idea of placing a self-registering thermometer at the sum- mit of the mountain. Balmat was personally a stranger to me at the time, but Professor Forbes' s writings had inspired me with a respect for him, which this un- prompted idea of his augmented. He had procured a thermometer, the graduation of which, however, he feared was not low enough. As an encouragement to Balmat, and with the view of making his laudable intentions known, I communicated them to the Royal Society, and obtained from the Council a small grant of money to pur- chase thermometers and to assist in the expenses of an as- cent. I had now the thermometers in my possession ; and having completed my work at Zermatt and Saas, my next desire was to reach Chamouni and place the instru- ments on the top of Mont Blanc. I accordingly descend- ed the valley of the Rhone to Martigny, crossed the Tete Noire, and arrived at Chamouni on the 29th of August, 1858. Balmat was engaged at this time as the guide of Mr. Alfred Wills, who, however, kindly offered to place him at my disposal ; and also expressed a desire to accom- * I find with pleasure that my friend Mr. John Ball is now exerting him- self in this direction. 170 DIFFICULTIES AT CHAMOUNL [1858. pany me himself and assist me in my observations. I gladly accepted a proposal which gave me for com- panion so determined a climber and so estimable a man. But Chamouiii was rife with difficulties. In 1857 the Guide Chef had the good sense to give me considerable liberty of action. Now his mood was entirely changed : he had been " molested " for giving me so much freedom. I wished to have a boy to carry a small instru- ment for me up the Mer de Glace, he would not allow it ; I must take a guide. If I ascended Mont Blanc he de- clared that I must take four guides ; that, in short, I must in all respects conform to the rules made for ordinary tourists. I endeavoured to explain to him the advantages which Chamouni had derived from the labours of men of science ; it was such men who had discovered it when it was unknown, and it was by their writings that the atten- tion of the general public had been called towards it. It was a bad recompense, I urged, to treat a man of science as he was treating me. This was urged in vain ; he shrugged his shoulders, was very sorry, but the thing could not be changed. I then requested to know his superior, that I might apply to him ; he informed me that there were a President and Commission of guides at Chamouni, who were the proper persons to decide the question, and he proposed to call them together on the 31st of August, at seven P.M., on condition that I was to be present to state my own case. To this I agreed. I spent that day quite alone upon the Mer de Glace, and climbed amid a heavy snow-storm to the Cleft station over Trelaporte. When I reached the Montanvert I was wet and weary, and would have spent the night there were it not for my engagement with the Guide Chef. I de- scended amid the rain, and at the appointed hour went to his bureau. He met me with a polite sympathetic shrug ; explained to me that he had spoken to the Commission, 1858.] THE INTENDANT MEMORIALISED. 171 but that it could not assemble pour une chose comme $a ; that the rules were fixed, and I must abide by them. " Well," I responded, " you think you have done your duty ; it is now my turn to perform mine. If no other means are available I will have this transaction commu- nicated to the Sardinian Government, and I don't think that it will ratify what you have done." The Guide Chef evidently did not believe a word of it. Previous to taking any further step I thought it right so see the President of the Commission of Guides, who was also Syndic of the commune. I called upon him on the morning of the 1st of September, and, assuming that he knew all about the transaction, spoke to him accordingly. He listened to me for a time, but did not seem to under- stand me, which I ascribed partly to my defective French pronunciation. I expressed a hope that he did comprehend me ; he said he understood my words very well, but did not know their purport. In fact he had not heard a sin- gle word about me or my request. He stated with some indignation that, so far from its being a subject on which the Commission could not assemble, it was one which it was their especial duty to take into consideration. Our conference ended with the arrangement that I was to write him an official letter stating the case, which he was to forward to the Intendant of the province of Faucigny resident at Bonneville. All this was done. I subsequently memorialised the Intendant himself ; and Balmat visited him to secure his permission to ac- company me. I have to record, that from first to last the Intendant gave me his sympathy and support. He could not alter laws, but he deprecated a " judaical " inter- pretation of them. His final letter to myself was as follows : 172 THE INTENDANT'S RESPONSE. [1858. " Intendance Royale de la Province de Faucigny, "Bonneville, 11 Septembre, 1858. " Monsieur, " J'apprends avec une veritable peine les diffi- culte*s que vous rencontrez de la part de M. le Guide Chef pour 1'effectuation de votre pdrilleuse entreprise scienti- fique, mais je dois vous dire aussi avec regret que ces difficulty's resident dans un re*glement fait en vue de la security des voyageurs, quelque puisse etre le but de leurs excursions. " Desireux n^anmoins de vous etre utile notamment en la circonstance, j'invite aujourd'hui meme M. le Guide Chef a avoir gard a votre projet, a faire en sa faveur une exception an r^glement ci devant eu, tant qu'il n'y aura aucun danger pour votre surete* et celles des personnes qui vous accompagneront, et enfin de se preter dans les limites de ses moyens et attributions pour 1'heureux success de 1'expedition, dont les consequences et r^sultats n'mte*res- sent pas seulement la science, mais encore la vallee de Chamounix en particulier. " Agre*ez, Monsieur, " Fassurance de ma consideration tres-distingu^e. " Pour 1'Intendant en conge, " Le Secretaire, " DELEGLISE." While waiting for this permission I employed myself ii various ways. On the 2nd of September I ascended the Brdvent, from which Mont Blanc is seen to great advan tage. From Chamouni its vast slopes are so foreshortenec that one gets a very imperfect idea of the extent to b< traversed to reach the summit. What, however, struct me most on the Brevent was the changed relation o the Aiguille du Dm and the Aiguille Verte. From Mont anvert the former appears a most imposing mass, whil< 1858.] THE "SERACS" REVISITED. 173 the peak of the latter appears rather dwarfed behind it ; but from the Ere* vent the Aiguille du Dru is a mere pinnacle stuck in the breast of the grander pyramid of the Aiguille Verte. On the 4th I rose early, and, strapping on my telescope, ascended to the Montanvert, where I engaged a youth to accompany me up the glacier. The heavens were clear and beautiful : blue over the Aiguille du Dru, blue over the Jorasse and Mont Mallet, deep blue over the pinnacles of Charmoz, and the same splendid tint stretched grandly over the Col du Ge*ant and its Aiguille. No trace of con- densation appeared till towards eleven o'clock, when a ittle black balloon of cloud swung itself over the Aiguilles Gouges. At one o'clock there were two large masses and a little one between them ; while higher up a white veil, almost too thin to be visible, spread over a part of the leavens. At the zenith, however, and south, north, and west, the blue seemed to deepen as the day advanced. I visited the ice-wall at the Tacul, which seemed lower :han it was last year ; the cascade of le Ge*ant appeared also far less imposing. Only in the early part of summer do we see the ice in its true grandeur : its edges and sur- ? aces are then sharp and clear, but afterwards its nobler masses shrink under the influence of sun and air. The seracs now appeared wasted and dirty, and not the sharp angular ice-castles which rose so grandly when I first saw them. Thirteen men had crossed the Col du Ge*ant on the day previous, and left an ample trace behind them. This followed nearly to the summit of the fall. The con- dition of the glacier was totally different from that of the opposite side on the previous year. The ice was riven, burrowed, and honeycombed, but the track amid all was easy : a vigorous English maiden might have ascended the fall without much difficulty. My object now was to examine the structure of the fall ; but the ice was 174 THERMOMETER AT THE JARDIN. [1858. not in a good condition for such an examination : it was too much broken. Still a definite structure was in many places to be traced, and some of them apparently showed structure and bedding at a high angle to each other, but I could not be certain of it. I paused at every command- ing point of view and examined the ice through my opera- glass ; but the result was inconclusive. I observed that the terraces which compose the fall do not front the middle of the glacier, but turn their foreheads rather towards its eastern side, and the consequence is that the protuberances lower down, which are the remains of these terraces, are highest at the same side. Standing at the base of the Aiguille Noire, and looking downwards where the Glacier des Pe'riades pushes itself against the Geant, a series of fine crumples is formed on the former, cut across by crevasses, on the walls of which a forward and backward dipping of the blue veins is exhibited. Huge crumples are also formed by the Glacier du Ge'ant, which are well seen from a point nearly opposite the lowest lateral moraine of the Glacier des Periades. In some cases the upper portions of the crumples had scaled off so as to form arches of ice, a consequence doubtless of the pressure. The beauty of some Alpine skies is treacherous ; in fact, the deepest blue often indicates an atmosphere charged almost to saturation with aqueous vapour. This was the case on the present occasion. Soon after reaching Chamouni in the evening, rain commenced and continued with scarcely any intermission until the afternoon of the 8th. I had given up all hopes of being able to ascend Mont Blanc ; and hence resolved to place the thermometers in some more accessible position. On the 9th accordingly, accom- panied by Mr. Wills, Balmat, and some other friends, I ascended to the summit of the Jardin, where we placed two thermometers : one in the ice, at a depth of three feet below the surface ; another on a ledge of the highest 1858.]; EVENING BED. 175 rock.* The boiling-point of water at this place was 194.6 Fahr. Deep snow was upon the Talefre, and the surrounding precipices were also heavily laden. Avalanches thundered incessantly from the Aiguille Yerte and the other moun- tains. Scarcely five minutes on an average intervened between every two successive peals ; and after the direct shock of each avalanche had died away, the air of the )asin continued to be shaken by the echos reflected from .ts bounding walls. The day was far spent before we had completed our work. All through the weather had been fine, and towards ivening augmented to magnificence. As we descended the glacier from the Couvercle the sun was just disappear- ng, and the western heaven glowed with crimson, which crept gradually up the sky until finally it reached the zenith itself. Such intensity of colouring is exceedingly rare in the Alps ; and this fact, together with the known ariations in the intensity of the firmamental blue, justify the conclusion that the colouring must, in a great measure, )e due to some variable constituent of the atmosphere. If 'he air were competent to produce these magnificent effects they would be the rule instead of the exception. No sooner had the thermometers been thus disposed of ;han the weather appeared to undergo a permanent change. On the 10th it was perfectly fine, not the slightest mist upon Mont Blanc; on the llth this was also the case. Balmat still had the old thermometer to which I have already referred ; it might not do to show the minimum ;emperature of the air, but it might show the temperature at a certain depth below the surface. I find in my own 3ase that the finishing of work has a great moral value : * The minimum temperature of the subsequent winter, as shown by this hermometer, was 6 Fahr., or 38 below the freezing point. The instru- nent placed in the ice was broken. 176 FINISHED WORK. [1858. work completed is a safe fulcrum for the performance of other work ; and even though in the course of our labours experience should show us a better means of accomplish- ing a given end, it is often far preferable to reach the end, even by defective means, than to swerve from our course. The habits which this conviction had superinduced no doubt influenced me when I decided on placing Balmat's thermometer on the summit of Mont Blanc. 1858] SHADOWS OF THE AIGUILLES. 177 SECOND ASCENT OF MONT BLANC, 1858. (25.) ON the 12th of September, at 5J A. M. the sunbeams had already fallen upon the mountain ; but though the sky above him, and over the entire range of the Aiguilles, was without a cloud, the atmosphere presented an appear- ance of turbidity resembling that produced by the dust and thin smoke mechanically suspended in a London at- mosphere on a dry summer's day. At 20 minutes past 7 we quitted Chamouni, bearing with us the good wishes of a portion of its inhabitants. A lady accompanied us on horseback to the point where the path to the Grands Mulcts deviates from that to the Plan des Aiguilles ; here she turned to the left, and we proceeded slowly upwards, through woods of pine, hung with fantastic lichens : escaping from the gloom of these, we emerged upon slopes of bosky underwood, green hazel, and green larch, with the red berries of the mountain- ash shining brightly between them. Through the air above us, like gnomons of a vast sun-dial, the Aiguilles cast their fanlike shadows, which moved round as the day advanced. Slopes of rhododendrons with withered flow- ers next succeeded, but the colouring of the bilberry-leaves was scarcely less exquisite than the freshest bloom of the Alpine rose. For a long time we were in the cool shadow of the mountain, catching, at intervals, through the twigs in front of us, glimpses of the sun surrounded by coloured spectra. On one occasion a brow rose in front of me ; be- hind it was a lustrous space of heaven, adjacent to the sun, which, however, was hidden behind the brow; against this space the twigs and weeds upon the summit of the 12 178 INTERFERENCE SPECTRA. [1858. brow shone as if they were self-luminous, while some bits of thistle-down floating in the air appeared, where they crossed this portion of the heavens, like fragments of the sun himself. Once the orb appeared behind a rounded mass of snow which lay near the summit of the Aiguille du Midi. Looked at with the naked eyes, it seemed to pos- sess a billowy motion, the light darting from it in dazzling curves, a subjective effect produced by the abnormal action of the intense light upon the eye. As the sun's disk came more into view, its rays however still grazing the summit of the mountain, interference-spectra darted from it on all sides, and surrounded it with a glory of richly- coloured bars. Mingling however with the grandeur of nature, we had the anger and obstinacy of man. With a view to subsequent legal proceedings, the Guide Chef sent a spy after us, who, having satisfied himself of our delinquen- cy, took his unpleasant presence from the splendid scene. Strange to say, though the luminous appearance of bodies projected against the sky adjacent to the rising sun is a most striking and beautiful phenomenon, it is hardly ever seen by either guides or travellers ; probably because they avoid looking towards a sky the brightness of which is painful to the eyes. In 1859 Auguste Balmat had never seen the effect ; and the only written description of it which we possess is one furnished by Professor Necker, in a letter to Sir David Brewster, which is so interesting that I do not hesitate to reproduce it here. " I now come to the point," writes M. Necker, " which you particularly wished me to describe to you ; I mean the luminous appearance of trees, shrubs, and birds, when seen from the foot of a mountain a little before sunrise. The wish I had to see again the phenomenon before at- tempting to describe it made me detain this letter a few days, till I had a fine day to go to see it at the Mont Sa- leve ; so yesterday I went there, and studied the fact, and 1358.] PROFESSOR NECKER'S LETTER. 179 iii elucidation of it I made a little drawing, of which I give you here a copy : it will, with the explanation and the annexed diagram (Fig. 9), impart to you, I hope, a correct idea of the phenomenon. You must conceive the observer placed at the foot of a hill interposed between him and the place where the sun is rising, and thus entirely in the shade ; the upper margin of the mountain is covered with woods or detached trees and shrubs, which are projected as dark objects on a very bright and clear sky, except at the very place where the sun is just 'going to rise; for there all the trees and shrubs bordering the margin are entirely branches, leaves, stem and all of a pure and brilliant white, appearing extremely bright and luminous, as that part of it which surrounds the sun always is. All the minutest details, leaves, twigs,