456 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



than those of an aqueous cloud. Indeed, water is with- 

 out a parallel in this particular. Its vapour is the light- 

 est of all vapours, and to this fact the soft and tender 

 beauty of the clouds of our atmosphere is mainly 

 due.* 



After an hour's halt, our rope, of which we had tem- 

 porarily rid ourselves, was reproduced, and the descent 

 began. Jenni is the most daring man and powerful 

 character among the guides of Pontresina. The man- 

 ner in which he bears down all the others in con- 

 versation, and imposes his own will upon them, shows 

 that he is the dictator of the place. He is a large and 

 rather an ugly man, and his progress uphill, though 

 resistless, is slow. He had repeatedly expressed a wish 

 to make an excursion with me, and I think he desired 

 to show us what he could do upon the mountains. To- 

 day he accomplished two daring things the one suc- 

 cessfully, while the other was within a hair's-breadth of 

 a very shocking end. 



In descending we went straight down upon a berg- 

 schrund, which compelled us to make a circuit in com- 

 ing up. This particular kind of fissure is formed by 

 the lower portion of a snow-slope falling away from 

 the higher, a crevasse being thus formed between the 

 two, which often surrounds the mountain as a fosse of 

 great depth. Walter was here the first of our party, and 

 Jenni was the last. It was quite evident that Walter 

 hesitated to cross the chasm; but Jenni came forward, 

 and half by expostulation, half by command, caused 

 him to sit down on the snow at some height above the 

 fissure. I think, moreover, he helped him with a 



Since this was written Mr. Sinclair has greatly augmented our 

 knowledge of cloud-formation. By a series of striking experi- 

 ments he has shown the part played by solid nuclei in the act of 

 precipitation. 



