V. Through the agency of this power he stirred the prince to action, caused him to take THE gorges of the Alps interested me in wholesome exercise, and thus cured him of 1864, as the question of their origin was his ailments. At St. Moritz the water is then under discussion. Having heard much probably the football-the air and exercise of the Via Mala as an example of a crack on these windy heights being in most cases produced by an earthquake, I went there, the real curative agents. The dining-room and afterwards examined the gorge of of the Kurhaus, when my friend Professor Pfeffers, that of Bergun, the Finsteraar- Hirst and I were there, was filled with schlucht, and several others of minor note. guests: every window was barred, while In all cases I arrived at the same conclu- down the chilled panes streamed the consion-namely, that earthquakes had noth-densed vapour of respiration. The place ing to do with the production of these won- and company illustrated the power of habit derful chasms, but that they had been one to modify the human constitution; for it and all sawn through the rocks by running was through habit that these people extractwater. From Tusis I crossed the beautiful ed a pleasurable existence out of an atmoSchien Pass to Tiefen-kasten, and went sphere which threatened with asphyxia the thence by diligence over the Julier to Pon- better ventilated Englishman. tresina. There was a general understanding between my friend Hirst and myself, that we should this year meet at Pontresina, and without concert as to the day both of us reached the village within the same quarter of an hour. Some theoretic points of glacier motion requiring elucidation, we took the necessary instruments with us to the Engadin; we also carried with us a quantity of other work, but our first care was to dissipate the wrecked tissues of our bodies, and to supply their place by new material. The scenery of the Engadin stands both in character and position between that of Switzerland and the Tyrol, combining in a high degree the grandeur of the one and the beauty of the other. Pontresina occupies a fine situation on the Bernina road, at about 6,000 feet above the sea. From the windows of the hotel you look up the Rosegg valley. The pines are large and luxuriant below, but they dwindle in size as they struggle up the heights, until they are cut off finally either by the inclemency of the air or the scantiness of their proper atmospheric food. From the earth itself these trees derive but an infinitesimal portion of their supplies, as may be seen by the utter barrenness of the rocks on which they flourish, and which they use simply as supports to lift their branches into the nutritive atmosphere. The valley ends in the Rosegg gla-induction. The muscles are the machinery cier, which is fed by the snows of one of the noblest mountain-groups in the whole of Switzerland. The baths of St. Moritz are about an hour distant from Pontresina. Here every summer hundreds of Swiss and Germans, and an increasing number of English, aggregate. The water contains carbonic acid (the gas of soda water) and a trace of sulphate of iron (copperas); this the visitors drink, and in elongated tubs containing it they submerge themselves. A curious effect is produced by the collection and escape of innumerable bubbles of carbonic acid from the skin. Every bubble on detaching itself produces a little twitch, and hence a sort of prickly sensation experienced in the water. The patients at St. Moritz put me in mind of that Eastern prince whose physician induced him to kick a football under the impression that it contained a charm. The sagacious doctor knew that faith has a dynamic power unpossessed by knowledge. Twenty-four years ago Mayer, of Heilbronn, with that power of genius which breathes large meanings into scanty facts, pointed out that the blood was the "oil of life," and that muscular effort was, in the main, supported by the combustion of this oil. The recent researches of eminent men completely prove the soundness of Mayer's by which the dynamic power of the food is brought into action. Nevertheless, the whole body, though more slowly than the blood, wastes also. How is the sense of personal identity maintained across this flight of molecules? To man, as we know him, matter is necessary to consciousness, but the matter of any period may be all changed, while consciousness exhibits no solution of continuity. The oxygen that departs seems to whisper its secret to the oxygen that arrives, and thus, while the Non-ego shifts and changes, the Ego remains intact. Constancy of form in the grouping of the molecules, and not constancy of the molecules themselves, is the correlative of this constancy of perception. Life is a wave which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles. The ancient lake-beds of the Alps bear directly upon those theories of erosion and convulsion which, in 1864, were subjects of geological discussion. They are to be found | present numerous cases of the kind. On in almost every Alpine valley, each consist- the 20th of July, 1864, I came upon a ing of a level plain formed by sediment, fine group of such cones upon the Morwith a barrier below it, which once consti- teratsch glacier. They were perfect models tuted the dam of the lake. These barriers of the Alps. I could find among them a reare now cut through, a river in each case duced copy of almost every mountain with flowing through the gap. How cut through? which I am acquainted. One of them was one of the problems afloat five or six showed the peaks of the Mischabel to peryears ago. Some supposed that the chasms fection. How are these miniature mounwere cracks produced by earthquakes; and tains produced? Thus: sand is strewn by a if only one or two of them existed, this hy- stream upon the glacier, and begins immepothesis might perhaps postpone that closer diately to protect the ice underneath it from examination which infallibly explodes it. the action of the sun. The surrounding ice But such chasms exist by hundreds in the melts away, and the sand is relatively eleAlps, and we could not without absurdity vated. But the elevation is not mathematiinvoke in each case the aid of an earthquake cally uniform, for the sand is not of the same to split the dam and drain the waters. Near depth throughout. Some portions rise Pontresina there is a good example of a higher than others. Down the slopes little rocky barrier with a lake-bed behind it, rills trickle, partially removing the sand while, within hearing of the village, a river and allowing the sun to act to some extent rushes through a chasm which intersects the upon the ice. Thus the highest point is barrier. In company with Professor Hirst kept in possession of the thickest covering, I have often stood upon the bridge which and it rises continually in reference to the spans this gorge, and we have both clearly circumjacent ice. All round it, however, seen the marks of aqueous erosion from its as it rises, the little rills are at work cutting bottom to its top. The rock is not of a the ice away themselves, or aiding the accharacter to preserve the finer traces of wa- tion of the sun, until finally the elevated ter action, but the larger scoopings and hol- hump is wrought into hills and valleys lowings are quite manifest. Like all others which seem a mimicry of the Alps themthat I have seen, it is a chasm of erosion. selves. The same idea may be extended to the There is a grandeur in this secular inteAlps themselves. This land was once be-gration of small effects almost superior to neath the sea, and from the moment of its that involved in the idea of a cataclysm. first emergence from the waters until now, Think of the ages which must have been it has felt incessantly the tooth of erosion. consumed in the execution of this colossal No doubt the strains and pressures brought sculpture. The question may, of course, be into play when the crust was uplifted pro- pushed to further limits: Think of the ages, duced in some cases fissures and contor- it may be asked, which the molten earth retions, which gave direction to ice and wa- quired for its consolidation. But these vaster, the real moulders of the Alps. When ter epochs lack sublimity through our inathe eye has been educated on commanding eminences to take in large tracts of the mountains, and when the mind has become capable of resisting the tendency to generalize from exceptional cases, conjecture grows by degrees into conviction that no other known agents than ice and water could have given the Alps their present forms. The plains at their feet, moreover, are covered by the chips resulting from their sculpture. Were they correctly modelled so as to bring their heights and inclinations in just proportions immediately under the eye, this undoubtedly is the conviction that would first force itself upon the mind. An inspection of some of the models in the Jermyn Street Museum will in part illustrate my meaning. In connexion with this question of mountain sculpture, the sand-cones of the glaciers are often exceedingly instructive. The Unteraar glacier and the Görner glacier bility to grasp them. They bewilder us, but they fail to make a solemn impression. The genesis of the mountain comes more within the scope of the intellect, and the majesty' of the operation is enhanced by our partial ability to conceive it. In the falling of a rock from the mountain-head, in the shoot of an avalanche, in the plunge of a cataract, we often see a more impressive illustration of the power of gravity than in the motion of the stars. When the intellect has to intervene, and calculation is necessary to the building up of the conception, the expansion of the feelings ceases to be proportional to the magnitude of the phenonema. The Piz Languard is a ladies' mountain, though 11,000 feet high. But why should this language be employed? There is one Miss Walker in the world who has climbed most of the noted mountains of Switzerland, and this fact overthrows every conclusion regarding man's superior climbing power, just as surely as the existence of one George Eliot and of several Miss Beckers upsets his claim to intellectual superiority. If I might parenthetically say one word upon the subject, it would be to remind the lords of creation that, though it is true that women have for ages permitted men not only the privilege of voting at elections, and of writing the best philosophy and mathematics, but also of producing the best poetry, the best music, and even the best cookery, it is not to be forgotten how the woman is weighted in the race. which descend from the Piz Bernina and its companions. The mountains themselves were without a cloud, and, set in the blue heaven, touches of tenderness were mingled with their strength. We spent some hours of perfect enjoyment upon this fine ice-plain, listening to its moulins and the rush of its streams. Along the centre of the Morteratsch glacier runs a medial moraine, a narrow strip of débris in the upper portions, but overspreading the entire glacier towards its end. How is this widening of the moraine to be accounted for? Mr. Hirst and I set out three different rows of stakes across the glacier: one of them high up, a second lower down, and a third still nearer to the end of the glacier. In 100 hours the central points of these three lines had moved through the following distances: No. 1, highest line, 56 inches. Had we taken a line still lower than No. 3, Now these measurements prove that the end, or as it is sometimes called the snout, of the glacier, moves far less than its upper portions. A block of stone, or a patch of débris, for example, on the portion of the No mother can wash or suckle her baby without having a set towards washing and suckling impressed upon the molecules of her brain; aud this set, according to the laws of hereditary transmission, is passed on to her daughter. Not only, therefore, does the woman at the present day suffer deflection from intellectual pursuits through her proper motherly instincts, but inherited proclivities act upon her mind, like a multiplying galvanometer, to augment indefinitely the force of the deflection. Even our spinsters are not free from the inherited disturbance. Tendency is immanent within them, to warp them from intellect to baby love. But let me not seem to trifle with a grave question. While feeling, in common with the true womanhood of England, a hearty antipathy to the modern develop-glacier crossed by line No. 1, approaches ments of Amazonism, I would express my belief in the capacity of woman to grasp and to enjoy whatever the brains of men have achieved. To those who are striving to give this capacity healthy exercise I would in all heartiness say “ good speed." But the ladies themselves are warping me aside from the ladies' mountain the Piz Languard. And here we meet point-blank an objecI climbed it on the 25th of July, and a tion raised by that very distinguished man, grand outlook it affords. The heavens Professor Studer, of Berne, to the notion overhead were clear, but in some directions that the glacier exerts an erosive action on the scowl of the infernal regions seemed to its bed. He urges that at the ends of the fall upon the hills. The group of the Ber-glaciers of Chamouni, of Arolla, Ferpecle, nina was in the sunshine, and its glory and beauty were not to be described. The depth of impressions upon consciousness is measured by the quantity of change which they involve. It is the intermittent current, not the continuous one, that tetanizes the nerve, and half the interest of the Alps depends upon the caprices of the air. The Morteratsch glacier is a very noble one to those who explore it in its higher parts. Its middle portion is troubled and crevassed, but the calm beauty of its upper portions is rendered doubly impressive by the turbulence encountered midway. Into this region, without expecting it, Hirst and myself entered one Sunday in July, and explored it up to the riven and chaotic snows another block or patch at No. 3 with a velocity of 26 inches per 100 hours. Hence such blocks and patches must be more and more crowded together as the end of the glacier is approached, and hence the greater accumulation of stones and débris near the end. and the Aar, we do not see any tendency exhibited by the glacier to bury itself in the soil. The reason is, that at the point chosen by Professor Studer the glacier is almost stationary. To observe the ploughing or erosive action of the ice we must observe it where the share is in motion, and not where it is comparatively at rest. Indeed the snout of the glacier often rests upon the rubbish which its higher portions have dug away. VI. WHILE I was staying at Pontresina, Mr. Hutchinson of Rugby, Mr. Lee Warner, and myself joined in a memorable expedition up the Piz Morteratsch. This is a very noble mountain, and nobody had previously A.M. thought of associating the idea of danger with its ascent. The resolute Jenni, by far the boldest man in Pontresina, was my guide; while Walter, the official guide chef, was taken by my companions. With a dubious sky overhead, we started on the morning of the 30th of July, a little after four There is rarely much talk at the beginning of a mountain excursion: you are either sleepy or solemn so early in the day. Silently we passed through the pine woods of the beautiful Rosegg valley, watching anxiously at intervals the play of the clouds around the adjacent heights. At one place a spring gushed from the valley bottom, as clear and almost as copious as that which pours out the full-formed river Albula. The traces of ancient glaciers were present everywhere, the valley being thickly covered with the débris which the ice had left behind. An ancient moraine, so large that in England it might take rank as a mountain, forms a barrier across the upper valley. Once probably it was the dam of a lake, but it is now cut through by the river which rushes from the Rosegg glacier. Those works of the ancient ice are to the mind what a distant horizon is to the eye. They give to the imagination both pleasure and repose. was enjoyed with a gusto which the sybarite of the city could neither imitate nor share. The We spent about an hour upon the warm gneiss-blocks on the top. Veils of cloud screened us at intervals from the sun, and then we felt the keenness of the air; but in general we were cheered and comforted by the solar light and warmth. The shiftings of the atmosphere were wonderful. white peaks were draped with opalescent clouds which never lingered for two consecutive minutes in the same position. Clouds differ widely from each other in point of beauty, but I had hardly seen them more beautiful than they appeared to-day, while the successions of surprises experienced through their changes were such as rarely fall to the lot even of a practised mountaineer. These clouds are for the most part produced by the chilling of the air through its own expansion. When thus chilled, the aqueous vapour diffused through it, which is previously unseen, is precipitated in visible particles. Every particle of the cloud has consumed in its formation a little polyhedron of vapour, and a moment's reflection will make it clear that the size of the cloudparticles must depend, not only on the size The morning, as I have said, looked of the vapour polyhedron, but on the rethreatening, but the wind was good, by de-lation of the density of the vapour to that grees the cloud-scowl relaxed, and broader patches of blue became visible above us. We called at the Rosegg chalets, and had some milk. We afterwards wound round a shoulder of the hill, at times upon the moraine of the glacier, and at times upon the adjacent grass slope; then over shingly inclines, covered with the shot rubbish of the heights. Two ways were now open to us, the one easy but circuitous, the other stiff but short. Walter was for the former, and Jenni for the latter, their respective choices being characteristic of the two men. To my satisfaction Jenni prevailed, and we scaled the steep and slippery rocks. At the top of them we found ourselves upon the rim of an extended snow-field. Our rope was here exhibited, and we were bound by it to a common destiny. In those higher After an hour's halt, our rope, of which regions the snow-fields show a beauty and we had temporarily rid ourselves, was rea purity of which those who linger low down produced, and the descent began. Jenni have no notion. We crossed crevasses and is the most daring man and powerful charbergschrunds, mounted vast snow-basses, acter among the guides of Pontresina. The and doubled round walls of ice with long manner in which he bears down all the othstalactites pendent from their eaves. One ers in conversation, and imposes his own by one the eminences were surmounted. will upon them, shows that he is the dictaThe crowning rock was attained at half-past tor of the place. He is a large and rather twelve. On it we uncorked a bottle of an ugly man, and his progress up hill, champagne; mixed with the pure snow of though resistless, is slow. He had repeatthe mountain, it formed a beverage, and edly expressed a wish to make an excursion of its liquid. If the vapour were light and the liquid heavy, other things being equal, the cloud-particle would be smaller than if the vapour were heavy and the liquid light. There would evidently be more shrinkage in the one case than in the other. Now there are various liquids whose weight is not greater than that of water, while the weight of their vapour, bulk for bulk, is five or six times that of aqueous vapour. When those heavy vapours are precipitated as clouds, which is easily done artificially, their particles are found to be far coarser than those of an aqueous cloud. Indeed water is without parallel in this particular. Its vapour is the lightest of all vapours, and to this fact the soft and tender beauty of the clouds of our atmosphere is mainly due. with me, and I think he desired to show us who asked me whether I knew Professor what he could do upon the mountains. To- Tyndall. "He is killed, sir," said the day he accomplished two daring things-the man, "killed upon the Matterhorn." I one successfully, while the other was within then listened to a somewhat detailed aca hair's-breadth of a very shocking end. count of my own destruction, and soon In descending we went straight down gathered that, though the details were erupon a Bergschrund, which had compelled roneous, something serious had occurred. us to make a circuit in coming up. This At Imhof the rumour became more conparticular kind of fissure is formed by the sistent, and immediately afterwards the Matlower portion of a snow-slope falling away terhorn catastrophe was in every mouth, and from the higher, and a crevasse being thus in all the newspapers. My friend and myformed between both, which often surrounds self wandered on to Mürren, whence, after the mountain as a fosse of terrible depth. an ineffectual attempt to cross the PetersWalter was here the first of our party, and grat, we went by Kandersteg and the GemJenni was the last. It was quite evident that mi to Zermatt. Walter hesitated to cross the chasm; but Of the four sufferers on the Matterhorn Jenni came forward, and half by expostu- one remained behind. But expressed in lation, half by command, caused him to sit terms either of mental torture or physical down on the snow at some height above the pain, the suffering in my opinion was nil. fissure. I think, moreover, he helped him Excitement during the first moments left with a shove. At all events the slope was no room for terror, and immediate unconso steep that the guide shot down it with an sciousness prevented pain. No death has impetus sufficient to carry him over the probably less of agony in it than that caused schrund. We all afterwards shot the chasm by the shock of gravity on a mountain side. in this pleasant way. Jenni was behind. Expected it would be terrible, but unexDeviating from our track, he deliberately pected, not. I had heard, however, of chose the widest part of the chasm, and other griefs and sufferings consequent on shot over it, lumbering like a behemoth the accident, and this prompted a desire on down the snow-slope at the other side. It my part to find the remaining one and bring was an illustration of that practical know-him down. I had seen the road-makers at ledge which a long residence among the mountains can alone impart, and in the possession of which our best English climbers fall far behind their guides. The remaining steep slopes were also descended by glissade, and we afterwards marched cheerily over the gentler inclines. We had ascended by the Rosegg glacier, and now we wished to descend upon the Morteratsch glacier, and make it our highway home. It was while we were attempting this descent that we were committed to that ride upon the back of an avalanche, a description of which is given in the Times newspaper for the 1st of October, 1864.* VII. IN July 1865 my excellent friend Hirst and myself visited Glarus, intending, if circumstances favoured us, to climb the Tödi. We had, however, some difficulty with the guides, and therefore gave the expedition up. Crossing the Klausen pass to Altdorf, we ascended the Gotthardt Strasse to Wasen, and went thence over the Susten pass to Gadmen, which we reached late at night. We halted for a moment at Stein, but the blossom of 1863 was no longer there, and we did not tarry. On quitting Gadmen next morning I was accosted by a guide, * See also Alpine Journal, vol. i. p. 437. work between St. Nicholas and Zermatt, and was struck by the rapidity with which they pierced the rocks for blasting. One of these fellows could drive a hole a foot deep into hard granite in less than an hour. I was therefore determined to secure in aid of my project the services of a road-maker. None of the Zermatt guides would second me, but I found one of the Lochmatters of St. Nicholas willing to do so. Him I sent to Geneva to buy 3,000 feet of rope, which duly came on heavily-laden mules to Zermatt. Hammers and steel punches were prepared; a tent was put in order, and the apparatus was carried up to the chapel by the Schwartz-See. But the weather would by no means smile upon the undertaking. I waited at Zermatt for twenty days, making, it is true, pleasant excursions with pleasant friends, but they merely spanned the brief intervals which separated one raingush or thunderstorm from another. Bound by an engagement to my friend Professor De la Rive, of Geneva, where the Swiss savants had their annual assembly in 1865, I was forced to leave Zermatt. My notion was to climb to the point where the men slipped, and to fix there suitable irons in the rocks. By means of ropes attached to these I proposed to scour the mountain along the line of the glissade. There were peculiarities in the notion which need not |