REVIEWS. 
337 
compliment to rpiulcrs in gcncrul, about otlier engagements, refers to a six- 
weeks' cxiunination of tlic Mer de Glace and its tributaries, assisted by Dr. 
Hirst, with a view to the investigation of the niotion of tlie glacier, and the 
comieetion of the veined-structure of the glacier with the stratificaticm of the 
neve. But no scientific information on these points is given, and the whole 
cha)iter, however nicely penned, is therefore reduced to little more than the mere 
personal adventures of a man and a boy for a day among the seracs of the 
Glacier du Geant, one of the few instructive passages being the description of 
tlie ice-eascade through the defile formed by Le Rognon and the promontory of 
the Aiguille Noire. 
The fourth chapter, by Mr. W. Matthew, contains several years' excursions 
amongst the mountains of Bagnes, and abounds in notices of the movements 
and aspects of the six great glaciers which pour their frozen streams into this 
fine valley, plougliing up the green herbage of the meadows befcn-e them in 
theii- slow out irresistible passage, or stranded there, insensibly melt away, 
leaving great ruinous heaps of rock or moraines as mementos in future ages of 
their past existence. 
The description of the internipted feast, in Mr. Hinchoff's excursion from 
Zermatt to the Val d'Anniviers by the Trift Pass, is not only amusing, but 
affords an excellent idea of the fall and scattering of great blocks of massive 
rocks from the mountain's side, as also of the process by which the debris of 
the moraines is originally accumulated. 
Mr. Ball's visit to Zermatt in 1843, in some degree fiUs up the noticeable 
blaidv in Professor T^'udall's paper by some casual observations on Professor 
Forbes' statements, and by some intelligibly recorded facts and suggestions 
of his own. To these are added some new remarks upon the intensities of 
moonlight and early dawn at great heights. 
One passage in Mr. Anderson's interesting descent from the Sclu'eckhorn, so 
forcibly conveys the constant and perpetual degradation of the granite roek- 
masses of the higher peaks, that we think it quite worthy of quotation, as 
showing how great in aggregate result must be the effects of the frosts and 
other atmospheric influences which are uninterruptedly exerted at these great 
mountain-heights. He tells us in the descent of his party they saw nothing 
but bare rock. " There seemed no end to it. Once only I remember that the 
scene was varied, when a change took place in the mineral character of the 
rock, and we passed from the granite — too constantly disintegrated by the frost 
to permit of vegetation forming upon it — to a formation which, by its compo- 
sition or the direction of its cleavage, is more capable of resisting that mighty 
leveller of the high places of the earth. There the cliffs were clothed with 
lichens of the most beautiful and varied eoloiu's, affording a charming relief to 
the eye." 
The cause of such destructive inundations as those of 1852, in Switzerland 
and Savoy, is simply and intelligibly explained by Mr. Ball, in his expedition 
from the Grimsel to Grmdelwald. 
" I had," he says, " akeady been struck with the fact that on the Grimsel, 
and even on the Siderhorn, we had on the previous day encountered rain 
instead of snow, whereas on former visits, during bad weather, I had found 
deep snow at the Grimsel in August. The thermometer, during the preeecding 
thii-ty-six hours, had not fallen below 47 degrees Pahreulieit, sfiowing that the 
current from the south, whose over-charge of aqueous vapour had caused the 
heavy rain of the last five days, had maintained a temperature unusually liigli, 
even for the height of summer. This was the real cause of those destructive 
inundations which made the month of September, 1852, long remembered in 
many parts of Switzerland and Savoy. Such inundations would be far more 
common if (he enormous fall of rain in the lower valleys of the Alps were not. 
