1846.] GLACIER OF THE SCHONHORN NEAR S1MPLON. 121 



termination of the glacier all along presents a steep nearly pre- 

 cipitous surface of ice, sloping from 45 to 60. This ice rests 

 on a bed of debris of rock, which appears to be inclined about 

 25. Except near the precipitous termination of the glacier, 

 there are no apparent crevasses. The surface is uniform and 

 uninterrupted. Some water issues from beneath the steepest 

 part of the ice ; but even in the middle of the day, near the 

 end of July, there was exceedingly little. The length, if it may 

 be so termed, of the glacier, from back to front, is about 1000 

 feet, and its greatest breadth 1300 feet. Its surface may be 

 roughly estimated at twenty-six acres. 



The rock of which the Schonhorn is composed, is an alter- 

 nation of the slaty rocks resembling gneiss with talc slate, which 

 are so common in this part of the Alps. To my great surprise, 

 on one of my visits, I heard the sound of hammers and blasting 

 in this elevated and remote spot ; and found two men employed 

 in quarrying Potstone (Lapis ollaris) for building ovens, from a 

 retired nook beyond the glacier ; the quarry is marked on the 

 plan at E. 



On the 20th of July 1844, 1 ascended to the glacier, accom- 

 panied by M. Alt, one of the clerical members of the Simplon 

 establishment, and an assistant ; and I fixed upon a position, 

 marked St. on the rock on the east side of the glacier, for 

 planting the instrument, which was then directed, as nearly as I 

 could judge, in a line transverse to the prevailing slope of the 

 glacier, and the telescope was made to describe a vertical plane. 

 It was then sighted upon a well-marked quartz vein on the 

 rock on the distant side of the glacier, marked D, by which it 

 could at any time be brought into precisely the same position ; 

 the position of the instrument itself being referred to a mark 

 cut on the rock where it stood. Two marks were then fixed 

 on the glacier ; one was a pole stuck in at A, several feet into 

 the snow of the avalanche already described as traversing the 

 length of the glacier. The slope of the snow at the point A 

 was about 10 ; and the distance of A from the station St., by 

 an approximate measurement, 340 feet. 350 feet further in the 



