60 THE FORMS OF WATER IN 



and enthusiastic Swiss professor, Hugi, of Solothurin 

 (French Soleure), built a hut with a view to observa- 

 tions upon the glacier. His hut moved, and he 

 measured its motion. Ir the three years— from 1827 

 to 1830— it had moved 330 feet downwards. In 1836 

 it had moved 2,354 feet ; and in 1841 M. Agassiz found 

 it 4,712 feet below its first position. 



149. In 1840, M. Agassiz himself and some bold 

 companions took shelter under a great overhanging 

 slab of rock on the same moraine, to which they added 

 side walls and other means of protection. And because 

 he and his comrades came from Neufchatel, the hut 

 was called long afterwards the ' Hotel des Neuchatelois.' 

 Two years subsequent to its erection M. Agassiz found 

 that the c hotel ' had moved 486 feet downwards. 



§ 20. Precise Measurements of Agassiz and Forbes. 

 Motion of a Glacier proved to resemble the Motion 

 of a River. 



150. We now approach an epoch in the scientific 

 history of glaciers. Had the first observers been 

 practically acquainted with the instruments of pre- 

 cision used in surveying, accurate measurements of the 

 motion of glaciers would probably have been earlier 

 executed. We are now on the point of seeing such 

 instruments introduced almost simultaneously by M. 

 A gassiz on the glacier of the TJnteraar, and by Professor 

 Forbes on the Mer de Glace. Attempts had been made 



