1839-40.] HUGPS CABIN. 147 



tion beyond the Alps. After leaving Zermatt, and on 

 an excursion to Mont Cervin, Agassiz and his party 

 visited the glacier of Aletsch, the greatest of all the 

 Alps, with its Merjelen (Meril) lake, unique in Switzer- 

 land ; then the glacier of the Rhone, and afterward 

 the Grimsel again. Agassiz, desirous to see the place 

 where the monk Hugi of Soleure, some years previ- 

 ously, had established a cabin on the glacier of the Aar, 

 took a guide at the Grimsel and ascended the valley of 

 the Ober-Aar. After a rather exhausting walk over 

 the glacier for three hours, the guide showed a well- 

 preserved cabin on the median moraine close by an 

 enormous granite boulder. In this they found a bottle 

 containing several papers, one of which informed them 

 that, in 1827, Hugi constructed a dry-walled cabin with 

 a floor of hay, and from a second paper, also written by 

 Hugi, they learned that he had visited his cabin again 

 the 22d . of August, 1836, and found that it had 

 descended the glacier 2028 feet since it was built in 

 1827. Agassiz was much impressed by this discovery 

 of Hugi's cabin and its motion, and he then resolved 

 to return the next year and imitate Hugi in order to 

 continue his researches on glaciers. 



During the excursion Joseph Bettannier, who was 

 a good landscape artist, made several very exact draw- 

 ings of the glaciers round Zermatt, Monte Rosa, Viesch, 

 Finelen, Aletsch with its lake, St. Theodule, and Aar 

 with Hugi's cabin, to be used for an atlas to accompany 

 the "Etudes sur les glaciers." 



Agassiz returned to Neuchatel at the end of August. 

 Soon after, an important change was made in the house- 



