Ascent of the Jungfrau in 1841. 307 
come down in a body to Viesch, to do ourselves justice. This 
second messenger left us at midnight, promising to execute 
our orders promptly. At four o’clock in the morning every 
one was awake, waiting with anxiety for the messenger, who 
failed to appear ; five o’clock approached, and he had not re- 
turned, and still the sky continued as clear as at midnight ! 
At last we saw him approaching with the ladder on his back. 
A cry of joy resounded through the air. We proceeded at 
last to make ready for starting. In an instant every one was 
prepared ; but before setting out, Jacob called us around him, 
and harangued us nearly in the following terms: “ We should 
have set out at three o’clock, it is now five: these two lost 
hours we must make up on the plain of the glacier. Let us, 
therefore, advance at a quickened pace ; those who do not feel 
strong enough to follow me must remain behind, for we will 
wait for no one.” Such an address might well make those 
hesitate who, like myself, had not slept the whole night, ow- 
ing to the dampness of the hay ; but every one was filled with 
such ardour that none held back. I was delighted to visit 
again the Lake Meeril, with its floating ice, which had so in- 
terested me when I visited it for the first time with M. Agas- 
siz in 1839.* This small lake, situated at the bottom of the 
valley of Mceril, where it is bounded by the glacier of Aletsch, 
whose left side it washes, then seemed to me to be about a 
quarter of a league long, and some hundred feet broad. Now 
I was greatly surprised to find it completely changed; it seem- 
ed to me much smaller than formerly, and its level consider- 
ably lower. The floating masses of ice were likewise less nu- 
merous, and of smaller size. I intimated my surprise to a Va- 
laisan shepherd who accompanied us, and he informed us that 
the lake had been drained towards the end of last autumn, and 
had not yet attained its ordinary level. This explained to us 
why, on the preceding evening, we had found the canal dry 
by which it discharges itself, on ordinary occasions, into the gla- 
cier of Viesch. This canal was cut by order of the governor 
of Valais, for the purpose of affording a constant outlet to the _ 
lake, and thus prevent the mass of water which runs down 
5 ee ES eee 
* M. Agassiz has published a very beautiful lithograph of this lake in his 
Etudes sur les Glaciers, Pl, 12, 
