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ding of the NeVe, the other regards them as being produced by 

 pressure. 



Wishing to confer upon the inquiry the character of an experi- 

 mental one, his desire in 1858 was to examine a great number of 

 glaciers, which should exhibit the ice under different mechanical 

 conditions, thus accepting the combinations made by nature as a 

 substitute for those, which, under ordinary circumstances, are made by 

 the experimentalist himself. He therefore first visited and examined 

 the glaciers of Grindelwald. Crossing the Strahleck, he descended 

 the glacier of the Aar to the Grimsel, and proceeded thence to the 

 glacier of the Rhone. He subsequently spent eight days in the 

 neighbourhood of the great Aletsch glacier, and afterwards eleven 

 days exploring the range of glaciers which stretches from Monte 

 Rosa to the Mont Cervin. From Zermatt he proceeded to Saas, and 

 spent five days in the vicinity of the Allalein glacier : he afterwards 

 visited the Fee glacier, and completed his expedition by a visit to 

 the Mer-de-glace and its tributaries, and a second expedition to the 

 summit of Mont Blanc. 



The Paper contains an account of the observations made upon all 

 these glaciers, and these observations go unitedly to prove that the 

 production of the structure is independent of the stratification of the 

 Neve, and is the result of intense pressure acting upon the glaciers. 

 The author points out the place at which the structure is manufac- 

 tured, and whence it is sent forward, giving a character to other 

 portions of the glacier which have no share in its formation. 



The observations include some which leave no doubt as to the 

 general independence of structure and stratification. On the Furgge 

 glacier, for example, fine ice sections are exposed, which show the 

 bedding in a perfectly distinct and beautiful manner ; while crossing 

 the beds at a high angle, we have the true veined structure. The 

 coexistence of both is exactly analogous to that of cleavage and bed- 

 ding in slate rocks. While however the independence of both is 

 thus proved, it is not asserted that the direction of structure and 

 stratification never coincide. As the cleavage of rocks is sometimes 

 parallel to the bedding, so may the strata .of glaciers coincide with 

 the structure ; and this is probably the case in many of the so-called 

 secondary glaciers of the Alps. 



