LOUIS AGASSIZ. 245 



The basis of these researches was necessarily the study of existing 

 glaciers. Their constitution, their increase, their motion, the influence 

 of temperature, the transportation of blocks, the formation of moraines, 

 were all so many questions to be elucidated. Agassiz threw himself 

 with ardor into this new pursuit, and established himself with Desor, 

 Yogt, and others, upon the glacier of the Aar. They constructed 

 a lodging-place under the shelter of a large block of ice upon the 

 centre morain, and went to work. The followiug year, the block hav- 

 ing melted, they formed a cabin of wood and tent-cloth. It was di- 

 vided into three chambers ; the first was both laboratory and parlor, 

 whei-e they received the savans who flocked from all parts of the country 

 to the Hotel des Neuchdtelois, a name the modest abode has retained in 

 the history of science ; the second and third, furnished only with straw, 

 served as bedchambers, one for the naturalists, the other for the guides. 

 It may be imagined that the establishment was not comfortable, and 

 it required an unusual amount of energy to lead such a life during sev- 

 eral weeks every year. A letter of Mr. Desor gives some idea ot the 

 difiiculties encountered: "You are much mistaken," he writes to one 

 of his friends, "if you sui)pose that all is pleasure, satisfaction, and in- 

 tellectual enjoyment at the Hotel Xeuchdielois. We have been shut up 

 for three days in our tent unable to venture out, the gux* is so furious. 

 Do you know what a (jiix is? I think not, and you are happy in your 

 ignorance. I can only say in regard to it that if the founders of the va- 

 rious religions had known of the gux they would not have imagined a hell 

 for lost souls, but would simply have sent them to the Finsteraarhorn, 



and secnred for them a perpetual (/?< J- It takes hold of the limbs, 



dries the skin, renders the imagination heavy and obtuse, prevents the 

 exercise of the culinary art. In the night of the 21st to 22d it over- 

 turned our cabin, and we were obliged to work until morning to restore 

 it again. Imagine how delightful it must have been to work in the 

 open air at a temperature two degrees below zero, while a tempest was 

 constantly blowiug clouds of pulverized ice in our faces."t But every 

 day and night was not like this. Gayety and intellectual enjoyment 

 often reigned under the tent on the glacier of the Art. These expedi- 

 tions were continued until 1845. 



The greatest success crowned these persevering efforts. The ascents 

 made by the jSTeuchatel naturalists and their establishment upon the 

 glacier were widely known. Nothing similar had been undertaken since 

 the explorations of de Saussure on Mont Blanc. The Genevese savant 

 was too early in his eflbrts to have many imitators. But an excursion 

 to Zermat, the ascent of the Jungfrau and of the Schreckhorn gave 

 an impetus to mountain excursions, which began from that time to be 

 popular. In the mean time our naturalists were studying seriously the 

 constitution of the glaciers and the phenomena connected with them, 



*A Avhirlwind of snow, called so in the Oberland. 

 t Letter to M. A. Favre, August 1, 1842. 



