254 Capt. Marshall Hali—Swiss Geological Excursion. 
I take it the mountains at the head of the Val d’Herens were their 
source, the widening Rhone glacier of old having spread out as it 
advanced. I come to these conclusions from microscopical examina- 
tion of rocks, erratic and not in situ. 
If we leave the inn betimes on a fine morning, we shall find the 
torrent at its lowest, and, crossing it by a wooden bridge of the 
roughest construction, we traverse a meadow, and at once begin to 
ascend a steepish zigzag up a ridge partly of rock, partly of old 
moraine. Chalets some 1000 feet above the valley would give 
shelter at a pinch, and milk when inhabited. An hour more up the 
Schwartzberg brings us to the Aeusser Thurm, which, as also the 
Inner Thurm a little further on, overhangs the Schwartzenberg 
Glacier on the S.E. side, and on the N.W. joins the Névé of the 
Allalin Glacier. We cross the latter, but, as it is in this part 
treacherous (owing to concealed crevasses), though not steep, we 
must either be three in number, roped, and experienced, or have a 
guide (and always a rope). In half an hour we shall reach the 
foot of a rock marked in the Swiss map 3150 métres (10,883 
feet), and this is our mountain of euphotide. A climb without 
difficulty, but requiring caution, will in half an hour place us on its 
summit, and amongst its innumerable detached blocks we shall have 
found a ‘quantum sufficit’ of gabbros. Chloritic schists and serpen- 
tines characterize its surroundings, and the mass itself is far from 
being altogether euphotide. Now a geologist having started early 
and exploring the adjacent ridge, which leads up to the Allalinhorn, 
would fulfil the errand which took me there, but which I was 
unable to carry out from the rocks being concealed by an unusual 
quantity of snow in 1880. 
I was especially desirous to ascertain the exact relations of the 
presumably intrusive euphotide with the serpentine and other rocks 
surrounding it, and also to observe the effects of its contact with 
its neighbours. I failed ignominiously, though in other respects my 
scramble was delightful and its results satisfactory. There is 
another point—in the large Swiss map, a rock in the middle of the 
Allalin Glacier is marked 3368 métres. In that snowy year I think 
it must have been covered, or the glacier itself have previously 
increased in volume, for I could see nothing of it—the whole seemed 
névé. Now I much wish to know its nature, and should be grateful 
for specimens of it, and of the ridges leading up to the Allalinhorn 
and from the Inner Thurm to the Strahlhorn. 
Let the geologist be cautious as to falling stones, and bear in 
mind that serpentine, though a good solid rock, is perfectly awful to 
slip upon. 
In this skeleton of a tour the only occasions upon which a guide 
is at all necessary—though an intelligent mountaineer is always a 
useful and agreeable companion—is the scramble just described, and 
its alternative route from Fée. For these, and all walks in big 
mountains, a guide is a matter of prudence. I have now climbed 
for forty years, and still hold this mountaineering dogma. 
1 Vide Mineralogical Magazine, June, 1883. 
