Ice and its Natural History 269 



yielded perfectly to continued pressure, while the rock was 

 the resisting button. 



It will be readily recognised that the scoring and grooving 

 of the ice surface by the opposing rock can be witnessed only 

 when a glacier is advancing, and, in summer, only in localities 

 adequately protected from melting agency. 



For years I imagined that I was the only person who had 

 seen glacial action thus reversed, but later, when I acquired 

 Hugi's works and after I had studied them carefully, I found 

 that he had observed this, as well as almost everything else 

 that it is possible to see in a glacier. Before starting on his 

 memorable winter expedition to the Eismeer, he had the 

 position of the lower extremities of both the upper and 

 the lower glacier of Grindelwald exactly marked out, so as 

 to be able, on his return, to ascertain, by direct measurement, 

 any advance or retreat which had taken place. His. way to 

 the Eismeer lay along the flank of the upper glacier which 

 at that date, January 1832, was advancing in great volume 

 into the plain where it spread itself out like a fan, and he 

 observed that on its western side the motion of the glacier 

 was opposed by a mass of rock. It pushed itself over this 

 rock with great energy, and for a distance of 41 feet down 

 the valley the surface of the ice, which had passed over the 

 rock, was deeply scored and grooved. It was observed that 

 the glacier shoved itself over the rock at the rate of 5^ or 

 6 inches per day ; it was also noticed that the ice on the 

 eastern and opposite side of the glacier hardly moved at all, 

 not more than a few inches in three weeks. It was, however, 

 reported in the following spring by the man whom Hugi 

 employed to observe the glacier daily, that in February the 

 western flank of the glacier became stationary, while the 

 eastern flank pushed forward, digging up great masses of 

 stone and earth. 



This passage, which I have reproduced at length, not only 

 gives valuable objective information about the glacier, it also 

 enables us to form a subjective appreciation of the man who, 

 with nothing but the stipend of a schoolmaster, was able to 

 undertake an enterprise on so large a scale and so difficult as 



