CHAPTER XVII 



WALKS AND TALKS ABROAD 

 1866-1868 



MR. SHALER set sail for Europe in the fall of 1866. His stay 

 in England was short, for already the autumn was far advanced 

 and his object was to find a climate that offered the greatest 

 opportunities for outdoor life. These conditions, he was led to 

 believe, were to be had in Switzerland and thither he bent his 

 steps. From the moment he crossed the French border heavy 

 clouds blotted out the view of the mountains, so that when he 

 reached Montreux, where he had for some time been expected 

 at his sister-in-law's villa, close to the terraced banks of Lake 

 Geneva, even if the state of the atmosphere had permitted it 

 was too late in the evening to see anything of the hidden glory 

 of that famous region. Nevertheless he went to bed with the 

 uplifted sense of one girt about by grand scenery. His most 

 vivid imaginings were more than realized the next morning 

 when he opened his eyes and beheld from his bedroom window, 

 whose curtains had purposely been left undrawn, the Dent du 

 Midi's snow-capped heights radiant with the rose-light of the 

 dawn. This was his first unclouded view of the Alps and was a 

 vision of beauty which he never forgot. 



It was not long before he began the study of mountain-struct- 

 ure and the movements of the ice-streams of the Alps. Already 

 he had been imbued by Agassiz with intense interest in all that 

 related to glaciers ; he was also familiar with Elie de Beaumont's 

 "Systeme des Montagnes," which had been one of the most diffi- 

 cult parts of his examination for his degree, as appears in the 

 Autobiography, and with James D. Forbes's and Helmholtz's 

 theories concerning the characteristics of ice. The fact which 



