176 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. vm. 



ature was higher at the Grimsel than at Interlaken. 

 The amount of snow was enormous ; the hospice was 

 buried in it; and when the travellers, after a rather 

 exhausting walk, reached the place where the " Hotel 

 des Neuchatelois " should have been, they were greatly 

 surprised to see nothing of it but a sort of hump on the 

 crest of snow which covered the moraine. However, 

 after forcing their way around this hump, they found 

 on one side a few feet of the big boulder. It was 

 impossible to enter it without clearing away an enor- 

 mous mass of snow ; so Agassiz contented himself with 

 lying down on the snow, and enjoying the marvellous 

 spectacle around him. The weather was perfect ; the 

 air so clear that every topographical feature of the 

 Finsteraarhorn and other peaks was seen with a dis- 

 tinctness unknown during the summer season. The 

 travellers went as far as the Abschwung, then returned 

 to the place of the " Hotel des Neuchatelois," where 

 they saw the tops of two very high stakes placed there 

 in the preceding August in holes bored into the ice. 

 Agassiz remained behind with one guide to make sev- 

 eral observations with a thermometrograph, and finally 

 returned to the Grimsel, after a journey of twelve hours, 

 from 4 o'clock A.M. to 4 o'clock P.M., somewhat tired, 

 but very happy in his success ; for he was certainly 

 the first visitor to the Aar Glacier in the winter season. 

 From the Grimsel Agassiz crossed by Meyringen to 

 Rosenlaui, where he visited the glacier to examine the 

 polishing of the rocks in contact with the ice, and also 

 to determine the quantity of water arising from the 

 glacier. And in regard to the latter point, like de Saus- 



