HALF A CENTURY AGO AND TO-DAY. 



31 



These, no doubt, were out of date in a military sense, but added 

 much to the picturesqueness of a compact town, which, as yet, was 

 innocent of tramlines and disfiguring suburbs. Unfortunately-, 

 most of the large continental towns had outgrown their pristine 

 symmetry, and presented, nowadays, a somewhat formless mass of 

 buildings — useful, no doubt, but many of them very ugly. The 

 once beautiful city of Naples was a case in point. The great 

 turbine installation of the Ehone, on the other hand, is a real 

 improvement. As regards the junction of the Ehone and the 

 Ai"ve, if Professor Hull had gone a few miles further down he 

 would have foimd that this union of waters serves to illustrate 

 the saying ''that evil communications corrupt manners," since the 

 mixture ultimately becomes turlnd and not unlike green pea soup. 



As regards the extension of railway accommodation to Chamounix, 

 no doubt the modern traveller might obtain some increase of 

 comfort, but he would miss many fine points in the valley of the 

 Arve, and especially that magnificent bend of the river in the 

 neighbourhood of the Pont Pelissier, which exceeds in beaiuy 

 anything to be seen at Chamounix itself. The Savoyards had been 

 somewhat behind the S\viss in constructing Alpine railways, but 

 in order to make up for lost time there had been a talk of 

 a. railway up Mont Blanc itself, of which the line to the 

 Montanvert might be regarded as a very small instalment. 



When we come to regard the scientific aspects of the paper, we 

 are presented with facts of great interest and value, more especially 

 in respect of the shrinkage of the Mer de Glace. From the 

 observations of Mons. Vallot it would appear that the actual 

 ablation amoimts to a little short of iOO feet in fifty-seven years 

 at the Montanvert, where the glacier admits of very accurate 

 measm-ements, as it there runs in a deep rock channel. The 

 shrinkage of the Glacier des Bossons can only be inferred from 

 the present position of the terminal ice with reference to its 

 moraine. It would, however, be somewhat out of place to attempt 

 any comparison with the Glacial Period, when all the valleys were 

 completely filled with ice, and even the great vale of S'.vitzerland so 

 full that the granite of the Alps was deposited on the limestones of 

 the Jura. Bather it would appear that the changes indicated by 

 the shrinkage of the Mer de Glace and other Alpine glaciers may be 

 regarded as forming part of an alternate rise and fall which has 



