Besearches on Exishng Glaciers* 2^3 



projecting angles are the result of a recent fall of rook, as in 

 the case of the Falls of Niagara, and that the water has not 

 yet had time to round them ; but we must attend well to the 

 fact, that we have not here to do with stratified rocks, likp 

 those of Niagara, but with a very compact gneiss, which is 

 very obscurely stratified, and which, consequently, is not at 

 all liable to breaking down. 



At the Grimsel the snow was still thicker than at the Han- 

 deck ; the bed of the river was entirely filled, and the glacier, 

 as well as its moraines, were concealed under the snow. We 

 were not deterred, however, from visiting the Hotel des Neu- 

 chdtelois, which is situated at a distance of more than two 

 leagues above the extremity of the glacier, and at a height of 

 7500 feet. I borrow from the yet unpublished narrative of 

 our expedition by M. Desor, some passages which will give an 

 idea of the aspect of those regions in winter, and of the obsta- 

 cles against which we had to struggle, and will, at the same 

 time, report the observations we were enabled to make.* 



*' The distance from the Handeck to the Grimsel is only two 

 leagues, but as the snow became always more abundant as we 

 advanced, we could not hope for an easy road. The most dif- 

 ficult places were the woods of young pine trees. The bed of 

 snow which covered them was unequally distributed, and when 

 we accidently stepped near one of the trees, we were immersed 

 up to the waist ; an occurrence which, on each occasion, caused 

 very fatiguing shocks. At Raetherischboden, the last en- 

 largement of the valley, a small thread of water occupied the 

 bed of the Aar ; but the water was so pure that, from the first, 

 we supposed that it must come from some spring, and not from 

 the glacier. It did not carry along with it any of those plates 

 of mica whose presence gives to the water of glaciers that 

 sparkling appearance and that milky tint which characterize 

 it. 



'* The last league seemed to us the longest. The heat and 



* The narrative from which M. Agassiz extracts this passage has been 

 published, since the present memoir was written, in the Bibliotlihjtte Univcr- 

 selle de Genh'e, No. 7ti. We had intended to transfer it to our pages, in whole 

 or in part ; but this is now rendered unnecessary. — Edit. 



