i873 THE SWISS VALLEYS ONCE MORE 327 



from Cologne, and remained a week at Bingen, making 

 excursions up the valley of the Nahe and the Rhine. 

 Thence the party went to Strasburg, and Ramsay took 

 some geological expeditions into the Vosges valleys for 

 the solution of the question he had come to study. 

 Being so near, it was impossible to resist the pleasure 

 of seeing some of his old friends and former haunts in 

 Switzerland. So with his travelling companions, he 

 made for Basle, Lucerne, and Meiringen, crossing the 

 Scheideck to Grindelwald, where he was much inter 

 ested in the diminution of the glaciers since he had 

 previously seen them. By way of the Wengern Alp, 

 Lauterbrunnen, and Interlaken, the party reached 

 Berne, where they .remained some days taking excur 

 sions with the venerable Studer. They then made for 

 Bex, where Ramsay, with eyes now quickened to 

 perceive the profound interest of river-courses, was de 

 lighted to have an opportunity of examining the valley of 

 the Rhone where it bends sharply round at Martigny,and 

 farther down where the river is filling up the upper end 

 of the Lake of Geneva with sediment. Returning to 

 Basle, they experienced much kindness from thatdelight- 

 ful veteran of Swiss geology, Peter Merian, and from 

 Professor Rutimeyer, and then made their way home 

 ward by the east side of the Rhine, through Heidelberg to 

 Cologne. It had been Ramsay s intention to descend 

 the whole length of the grand old river down to 

 Rotterdam, but on looking into the state of the 

 finances of the party, he found that they had just 

 money enough left to take them straight back to 

 London, which they reached by way of Ostend. 



On his return he sent me (26th September) a few 

 jottings of his doings : * I got home last night, having 

 solved my problem in a very different way from what 



