284 In and Around the Morteratsch Glacier : 



back after the completion of his famous work on the Mer de 

 Glace in 1842 and the following years, he says : 



" I cannot now recall without some degree of shame the almost 

 blindfold way in which until lately I was in the habit of visiting the 

 glaciers. During three different previous summers I had visited the 

 Mer de Glace, and during two of them, 1832 and 1839, I had traversed 

 many miles of its surface ; yet I failed to mark a thousand peculiarities 

 of the most obvious kind or to speculate on their causes.. ..We are not 

 aware in our ordinary researches in Physical Geography, or the natural 

 sciences in general, how much we fall back on our general knowledge 

 and habitual observations in pursuing any special line of inquiry, or what 

 would be our difficulty in entering as men upon the study of a world 

 which we had not familiarly known as children 1 " 



However, notwithstanding the unfamiliarity of the scene, 

 I observed a good deal round about the glaciers, and I per- 

 fectly remember that the tongue of the glacier in which the 

 grotto was driven was in the main valley immediately below 

 the village of Grindelwald, and the same was the case with 

 the upper glacier, the lower end of which protruded far into 

 the Grindelwald valley. Both of these glaciers were in the 

 average state which they had preserved during the previous 

 hundred years, as could be ascertained from their representa- 

 tions in the albums of prints prepared for the use of tourists 

 in the pre-photographic days. 



These albums were got up with great care and often at 

 great expense. The prints are generally beautifulhy executed, 

 by well-known artists of the time, and their design is usually 

 very true to nature. They seldom bear the date of their 

 publication, because at that time views in Switzerland changed 

 very little and a good album was expected to last through 

 several generations of tourists. 



In September 1909 I had the curiosity to re- visit Grindel- 

 wald, taking with me photographs of some of these prints, 

 and I made it my business to find the positions from which 

 the views had been taken, and from these I took photographs 

 of the same views. 



1 Travels through the Alps of Savoy, etc., by James D. Forbes, ^45, 

 P- 59- 



