SYSTEME GLACIAIRE. 399 



pine fields of ice and the results obtained up 

 to 1840, inclusive of the author's own work 

 and his wider interpretation of the facts. The 

 " Systeme Glaciaire " was, on the contrary, an 

 account of a connected plan of investigation 

 during a succession of years, upon a single 

 glacier, with its geodetic and topographic fea- 

 tures, its hydrography, its internal structure, its 

 atmospheric conditions, its rate of annual and 

 diurnal progress, and its relations to surround- 

 ing glaciers. All the local phenomena, so far 

 as they could be observed, were subjected to 

 a strict scrutiny, and the results corrected by 

 careful comparison, during five seasons. As 

 we have seen, and as Agassiz himself says in 

 his Preface, this band of workers had " lived 

 in the intimacy of the glacier, striving to draw 

 from it the secret of its formation and its an- 

 nual advance." The work was accompanied 

 by three maps and nine plates. In such a 

 volume of detail there is no room for pictur- 

 esque description, and little is told of the 

 wonderful scenes they witnessed by day and 

 night, nothing of personal peril and adven- 

 ture. 



This task concluded, he went to England, 

 where he was to spend the few remaining 

 days previous to his departure. Among the 



