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As almost all my work on ice, outside of the laboratory, 

 was done in Switzerland, and as the Swiss Naturforschende 

 Gesellschaft honoured me many years ago by making me 

 one of its honorary members, I considered it my duty to 

 communicate to it an account of the more important results 

 of my work on the Swiss glaciers. I had also in my mind 

 that in case of there being any doubt about the work, the 

 Swiss were geographically in a better position to verify it 

 than any other people. As the meeting was being held in 

 the principal city of German Switzerland, I made my com- 

 munication in the German language. 

 No. 8. IN AND AROUND THE MORTERATSCH GLACIER : A STUDY 



IN THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ICE. (From the Scottish 

 Geographical Magazine, 1912. Vol. xxvill, p. 169.) . . 283 



My first acquaintance with glaciers was made in the 

 summer of 1867, when I visited Grindelwald. Both of the 

 glaciers of that valley were then in the state which they had 

 maintained for more than a century 284 



Recent change in the Lower Grindelwald Glacier and in 

 the Rhone Glacier, shown by ancient pictures and modern 

 photographs. These pictures exhibit the wastage which has 

 taken place in less than 50 years. M. Vallot estimates it to 

 amount to one-eighth of the total amount of sinking since the 

 last ice-age 286 



Shrinkage of the Morteratsch Glacier in the last few years, 

 exhibited by photographs taken during the period of 1906- 

 1911. The greatest amount of subsidence took place in the 

 very hot summer of 1911, amounting to between 4 and 5 

 metres, the average being 2*5 to 3 metres. 



At the end of the glacier the rate of apparent annual 

 retreat of the ice was less than 2 metres, while, on the western 

 flank, it was nearly 9 metres .... .V- . 288 



The principal source of the impurity in the intergranular 

 water is rock-debris > ' . 291 



Usefulness of the artificial grottos which are met with in 

 all frequented glaciers for the study of glacier-ice in its 

 primary state 292 



Intergranular melting of ice and re-freezing of the same . 293 



The intergranular moisture or liquid is an important item 

 in the economy of the glacier. It is the mother-liquor of the 

 grain and produces the medium in which the activity of 

 the crystallisation and dissolution of its ice develops itself. 

 Effect of solar radiation on glacier-ice. Its principal effect 

 is the production of the white surface-layer .... 294 



