lo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



large blocks iu the moraines, and tliei'e was a complete or nearly- 

 complete absence of glacial tables and pyramids. Here and there 

 low mounds of gravel and stones heaped themselves up in beehive- 

 like masses, such as have also been found on the surfaces of the 

 glaciers of Alaska and Spitzbergen, and occasional impacts had 

 also thrown the ice into deformed caps and rafts. There were no 

 ice rivers worthy of the name, and such channels as still marked 

 the courses of surface waters were of but insignificant extent. 



Had our mission been different from what it really was we 

 might have said that this glacial traveling was truly delight- 

 ful. With all the beauty of the ice fields of Switzerland, and 

 that charm of pedestrianism which an unexpected and varying- 

 change of scene carries with it, we had here the advantage of the 



Glaciek debouching on Plain. 



many hours, the consciousness that a journey was not limited to 

 any arbitrary separation of day from night. It was all day, 

 albeit the sun shone for only a paltry few hours. For some time 

 angry-looking clouds had been gathering about the blackened 

 granite crests ; the side canons poured out their fleecy hosts, and 

 before long the wild spirits of the mountains swept demonlike 

 across the valley of the glaciers. The few lazily falling flakes 

 which for a half hour or so had portended evil were before long 

 replaced by blinding sheets of snow, and for a long time, save in 

 its elements. Nature ceased to exist. The landscape was com- 

 pletely blotted out from view. We were not prepared for this 

 change, and the cold wind stung mercilessly wherever it caught 

 an exposed surface. We muffled ourselves as best we could in 

 our not over-generous garments, but yet it was not all solid com- 



