414 MY LIFE [Chap. 



interesting were the charming little alpine plants in the 

 patches of turf and the crevices in the rocks, among which 

 were two species of the exquisite Androsaces, the true gems 

 of the primrose tribe. I also one day took a lonely walk up 

 a wild valley which terminated in the glacier that descends 

 from Mount Emilius ; and on another day we drove up the 

 main valley to Villeneuve, and then walked up a little way 

 into the Val Savaranches. This is one of those large open 

 valleys which have been the outlet of a great glacier, and in 

 which the subglacial torrent has cut a deep narrow chasm 

 through hard rocks at its termination, through which the 

 river now empties itself into the main stream of the Dora 

 Baltea. This was the first of the kind I had specially noticed, 

 though I had seen the Gorge of the Trient on my first visit 

 to Switzerland at a time when I had barely heard of the 

 glacial epoch. 



Returning over the St. Bernard we went to Interlachen 

 and Grindelwald, saw the glaciers there, and then went over 

 the Wengern Alp, staying two days at the hotel to see the 

 avalanches and botanize among the pastures and moraines. 

 Then down to Lauterbrunnen to see the Staubbach, and 

 thence home. 



As I had found that amid the distractions and excitement 

 of London, its scientific meetings, dinner parties and sight- 

 seeing, I could not settle down to work at the more scientific 

 chapters of my " Malay Archipelago," I let my house in 

 London for a year, from Midsummer, 1867, and went to live 

 with my wife's family at Hurstpierpoint. There, in perfect 

 quiet, and with beautiful fields and downs around me, I was 

 able to work steadily, having all my materials already 

 prepared. Returning to London in the summer of 1868, 

 I was fully occupied in arranging for the illustrations and 

 correcting the proofs. The work appeared at the end of the 

 year, and my volume on " Natural Selection" in the following 

 March. 



I may here state that although the proceeds of my eight 

 years' collecting in the East brought me in a sufficient income 



