304 Report of the Researches of M. Jgassiz. 



left, where the whole mass is, as it were, more advanced in its 

 development. For the same reason also, we find the bands 

 farther down distinct on the right side, when none exist on 

 the left. In a word, the bands disappear at the distance of a 

 league from the extremity of the glacier ; or, at all events, we 

 very seldom find them distinct farther down. At the terminal 

 extremity, the whole mass is, as it were, transformed into blue 

 ice, and it is the ice full of air-bubbles, or the white bands, 

 which are the exception. As the lamellar structure disap- 

 pears, the striae seem to assume a certain leaf-like appearance, 

 which must not be confounded with the ribboned structure. 

 On the side of the neve, the blue bands of the glacier of the 

 Aar do not extend much more than a league above the Hotel 

 des Neuchatelois^ and Professor Forbes is certainly mistaken, 

 when he alleges they may be traced throughout the whole 

 glacier of the Finsteraar. I have indeed here and there met 

 with some slight trace of them, even above the Abschwung, but 

 they are so slight and irregular, that they must be regarded 

 only as exceptional. Numerous observations have likewise 

 been made upon the direction of the blue bands, and also on 

 their inclination, which, with those regarding the hardness of 

 the diff'erent kinds of ice, will be published in detail in M. 

 Agassiz's work. 



Professor Forbes, also, in 1842, resumed the study of the 

 blue bands ; and as if the comparison he had made the previ- 

 ous year between these bands and the cleavage of certain rocks 

 constituted an obligation to persist in the same explanation, 

 he assumes this analogy as the starting point of his new re- 

 searches, and endeavours to convince us, that the blue bands 

 are owing to the friction of two glaciers moving with an un- 

 equal velocity ; adding, that between two strata of rock, we 

 often meet with intermediate bands which seem modified by 

 the friction which the former have exercised upon each other. 

 The mere quoting of this explanation is sufficient for its re- 

 futation. 



3. On Stratification, 



The stratification apparent in the glaciers is a phenomenon 

 to which all the attention it merits has not hitherto been given. 



