GLACIAL PERIOD. 
11 
vents or libraries which might throw any light 
upon it. Among other records, I chanced 
upon the following, which may have some 
interest for the historian as well as the geol¬ 
ogist. 
During the religious wars of the sixteenth 
century, when the Catholics gained the ascen¬ 
dency in the Canton of Valais, the inhabitants 
of the upper valleys adhered to the Protestant 
faith. Shut out from ordinary communication 
with the Protestant churches by the Bernese 
Oberland, the account states that these peas¬ 
ants braved every obstacle to the exercise of 
their religion, and used to carry their children 
over a certain road by the valley of Viesch, 
across the Alps, to be baptized at Grindelwald, 
on the farther side of the glaciers of Aletsch 
and Viesch. I could not understand this 
statement, for no such road exists, or could 
be conceived possible at present; nor was 
there any knowledge of it among the guides, 
intimate as they are with every feature of the 
region. Impressed, however, with the idea 
that there must be some foundation for the 
statement, I carefully examined the ground, 
and, penetrating under the glacier of Aletsch, 
