A Study in the Natural History of Ice 285 



Change in the Lower Grindelwald Glacier betiveen 

 1777 and 1909. 



Fig. i is a photograph of an illustration of the Lower 

 Grindelwald glacier which was published in I777 1 . Fig. 2 is 

 a photograph taken by myself in September 1909 from the 

 same spot from which the drawing for the engraving of 1777 

 was taken. The position of the church in both pictures gives 

 a means of judging of the degree of coincidence of the two 

 views. Although the present church is a different building 

 from that which existed in 1777, both of them occupy the 

 same site. The picture of 1777 represents the glacier as no 

 more extensive or more voluminous than I remember it to 

 have been in 1867. 



The picture made in 1909 shows no ice in the main valley, 

 nor is there any visible in the lateral valley until a consider- 

 able elevation is reached, and the source of the glacier in the 

 Eismeer is not far distant. 



Change in the Rhone Glacier since before 1856. 



Fig. 3 is a photographic reproduction of the print of this 

 glacier in an album entitled Voyage Pittoresqiie de la Suisse, 

 published by H. F. Leuthold in Zurich. It bears no date, 

 but the copy which I possess was brought from Switzerland 

 in the autumn of 1856. The print of the Rhone glacier is 

 signed by the artist Bantli, which may afford a clue to the 

 date of the original sketch. In the work published in 1777, 

 above mentioned, there is a picture of the same glacier, and 

 both the extension and the volume of the glacier appear to 

 be identical in the two pictures. Fig. 4 is from a photograph 

 taken by myself in September 1909 on the spot close to the 

 Grimsel road, whence the sketch for the print must have been 

 taken. 



When I passed by the Furka road for the first time, in 

 1883, the lower glacier, though already diminishing from year 

 to year, still covered about one-half of the area of the low 



1 J^ableaux Topographiques, etc., de la Suisse et de I'lta/ie. Raoult : Paris, 

 '777> v l - ' pl a t e no - '7 2 - Drawn by Besson. 



