ORDINAKY GENEEAL MEETHSTG* 



Captain G. P. Heath, KN"., in the Chaik. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 

 The following paper was read by the author : — 



NOTES ON THE THICKNESS OF THE LUCERNE 

 GLACIER OF THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. By 

 Professor Edward Hull, M.A., LL.D., F.K.S. (Secretary). 



THE valley of the Lake of Lucerne, or as it is better known, 

 the Vierwaldstatter See (Lake of the Four-forest cantons) 

 is unsurpassed in Switzerland for the beauty and grandeur of 

 its scenery. Its lofty banks, clothed with forest, give place to 

 mural cliffs of limestone too steep for trees to grow on, but 

 diversified by terraces of richest green verdure ; while the waters 

 of the lake itself present a sparkling surface of bluish-green tint 

 reflecting the azure of the cloudless sky. Following the direc- 

 tion of the upper lake into the valley of the Eeuss, you behold 

 the landscape bounded by lofty mountain peaks and ridges, 

 rising higher and higher till culminating in the far distance 

 amongst the snowy summits of the Bernese Oberland. Here the 

 pure white cone of Finsteraarhorn pierces the sky to a height of 

 14,026 feet above the level of the sea ; farther on extend the 

 more massive group of St. Gotthard heights. It is hard to 

 conceive that such a scene of verdure and beauty as that which 

 we survey immediately around us from the terraces of the 

 Burgenstock or the Seelisberg Hotels was once enveloped in 

 snow and ice ; that an immense glacier occupied the lake lying 

 so placidly at a depth of about 1,500 feet beneath our feet, and 

 jiot only filled the channel to the level of its surface, but reached 



* Monday, May 9th, 1904. 



