106 THE FORMS OF WATER IN 



accounted for by the explanation. Could my wishes be 

 followed out, I would at this point of our researches carry 

 you off with me to Basel, thence to Thun, thence to 

 Interlaken, thence to Grindelwald, where you would 

 find yourself in the actual presence of the Wetterhorn 

 and the Eiger, with all the greatest peaks of the Bernese 

 Oberland, the Finsteraarhorn, the Schreckhorn, the 

 Moneh, tlie Jungfrau, at hand. At Grindelwald, as we 

 have already learnt, there are two well-known glaciers 

 — the Ober Grindelwald and the Unter Grindelwald 

 glaciers — on the latter of which our observations should 

 commence. 



269. Dropping down from the village to the bottom 

 of the valley, we should breast the opposite mountain, 

 and with the great limestone precipices of the Wetter- 

 horn to our left, we should get upon a path which com- 

 mands a view of the glacier. Here we should see 

 beautiful examples of the opening of crevasses at the 

 summit of a brow, and their closing at the bottom. 

 But the chief point of interest would be the crevasses 

 formed at the side of this glacier — the marginal crevasses, 

 as they may be called. 



270. We should find the side copiously fissured, even 

 at those places where the centre is compact ; and we 

 should particularly notice that the fissures would 

 neither run in the direction of the glacier, nor straight 

 across it, but that they would be oblique to it, enclosing 

 an angle of about 45 degrees with the sides. Starting 



