x.] 4LP1KE TRAVELS, 1850. 331 



Abschwung. At that spot their structural bands are cor- 

 rectly divided by the medial moraines, but lower down 

 they seem to unite, and cut the medial moraines. (This 

 is admitted in Desor's new work.) . . . 



' The rock of the " H6tel des Neufchatelois " has split 

 in two, and half of it now lies flat on the ice where we 

 slept in 1841. Otherwise the environs are -absolutely 

 unchanged, and I spent a pleasant hour on our poor old 

 block. M. Dolfuss told me that he had made experiments 

 on the compression of fragments of ice, which he found 

 to mould together at a temperature of 32, but at a lower 

 temperature they were ground to powder. 



* I returned to the Grimsel exceedingly pleased by my 

 excursion. This glacier is eminently fitted for making 

 experiments on a line of stakes, while its cohesion to the 

 sides, and the manner in which it moulds itself to the 

 form of its channel, are admirable. Another point is 

 \v< rthy of notice ; like the Glacier of Aletsch it is emi- 

 nently crystalline in its structure, and large crystalline 

 surfaces, some inches in length, reflect continually the sun's 

 rays (as they did those of the moon during our descent 

 of the Aletsch Gletscher in 1841). Something of the 

 same is observable on the glacier of the Rhone, but 

 nothing or almost nothing similar on the glaciers of the 

 < -ha in of Mont Blanc. It is undoubtedly a crystalline 

 "ii, which is prevented when the differential motion 

 develops the veined structure well.' 



Forbes returned to the Grimsel, and next day took 

 of Jialmat. His work was over. 



Journal, September 6th. ' Happily arrived at Largs 

 P.M., and found all well, . . .' 



His home sickness was over too. 



Early in the May of 1850, Forbes was on the point 



of starting for Germany, accompanied by Mrs. I-'m-l ..-.-; 



th< ir two eldest children, \\lirn his second dauphin- 



was attacked by a sudden illness, which her 



par* II I n < <>\< -ry was tedious, 



