The glacier descends a steep gorge, and in doing so is riven and broken in the most extraordinary manner. Here are towers, and pinnacles, and fantastic shapes wrought out by the action of the weather, which put one in mind of rude sculpture. Annexed is a sketch of an ice-pinnacle. From deep chasms in the glacier

issues a delicate shimmer of blue light. At times we hear a sound like thunder, which arises either from the falling of a tower of ice, or from the tumble of a huge stone into a chasm. The glacier maintains this wild and chaotic character for some time; and the best

iceman would find himself defeated in any attempt to get along it.

109. We reach a place called the Chapeau, where, if we wish, we can have refreshment in a little mountain hut. We then pass the Mauvais Pas, a precipitous rock, on the face of which steps are hewn, and the unpractised traveller is assisted by a rope. We pursue our journey, partly along the mountain side, and partly along a ridge of singularly artificial aspect—a lateral moraine. We at length face a house perched upon an eminence at the opposite side of the glacier. This is the auberge of the Montanvert, well known to all visitors to this portion of the Alps.

110. Here we cross the glacier. I should have told you that its lower part, including the broken portion we have passed, is called the Glacier des Bois; while the place that we are now about to cross is the beginning of the Mer de Glace. You feel that this term is not quite appropriate, for the glacier here is much. more like a river of ice than a sea. The valley which it fills is about half a mile wide.

111. The ice may be riven where we enter upon it, but with the necessary care there is no difficulty in crossing this portion of the Mer de Glace. The clefts and chasms in the ice are called crevasses; we shall make their acquaintance on a grander scale by and by.

112. Look up and down this side of the glacier. It is considerably riven, but as we advance the crevasses

THE MER DE GLACE, SHOWING MONT TACUL AND THE GRANDE JORASSE, WITH OUR CLEFT ABOVE TRÉLAPORTE TO THE RIGHT.

THE FORMS OF WATER IN CLOUDS, RIVERS, ETC. 43

will diminish, and we shall find very few of them at the other side. Note this for future use. The ice is at first dirty; but the dirt soon disappears, and you come upon the clean crisp surface of the glacier. You have already noticed that the clean ice is white, and that from a distance it resembles snow rather than ice. This is caused by the breaking up of the surface by the solar heat. When you pound transparent rock-salt into powder it is as white as table-salt, and it is the minute fissuring of the surface of the glacier by the sun's rays that causes it to appear white. Within the glacier the ice is transparent. After an exhilarating passage we get upon the opposite lateral moraine, and ascend the steep slope from it to the Montanvert Inn.

§ 13. The Mer de Glace and its Sources. Our First Climb to the Cleft Station.

113. Here the view before us is very grand. We look across the glacier at the beautiful pyramid of the Aiguille du Dru (shown in our frontispiece); and to the right at the Aiguille des Charmoz, with its sharp pinnacles bent as if they were ductile. Looking straight up the glacier the view is bounded by the great crests called La Grande Jorasse, nearly 14,000 feet high. Our object now is to get into the very heart of the mountains, and to pursue to its origin the wonderful frozen river which we have just crossed.

To String m the Montanvert with the glacier im we soon reach some rocks resem

La Fas: they are called les Ponts. We

wing where we quit the land for The racier, but before reaching

na poravak. Isaporte, we take once more to *N MOULAM SA, ir fugh the path here has been freka u Meme i slanger, for the sake of knowMAEDA TE LO ĮRAHVAT langer to a reasonable A in gate poses on the slope to our +maly bulder or two poised on the end of the place and fårtunate, also see the Nobe Dessel and plume viently down the slope. Presence of mind is all that is necessary to render our sady red; ban travelers de zet always show presae f zol, and hence the path which formerly led per this slope has been firsute The whole slope is embered by masses of rock which this little glacier has seat down. These I wished you to see; by and by they shall be fully accounted for.

113 Above Trélaporte to the right you see a most angular cleft in the rocks, in the middle of which vands an isolated pillar, hewn out by the weather. Per next object is to get to the tower of rock to the left that cleft, for from that position we shall gain a 2 commanding and instructive view of the Mer de ve and its sources.

11. The cleft referred to, with its pillar, may be