followed the high road which leads by the
Asile de Marchairuz to La Vallee, as far as the well-known Chalet de la
S. Georges; and then the character of the way changed rapidly for the
worse, and we took to the wet woods. After a time, the wood ceased for a
while, and a large expanse of smooth rock showed itself, rising slightly
from the horizontal, and so slippery in its present wet condition that
we could not pass up it. Then woods again, and then the montagnes of
_Sous la Roche_, and _La Foireuse_, till at last, in two hours, the Pre
de S. Livres was achieved. The fog was so dense that nothing could be
seen of the general lie of the country; but the _thalweg_ was a
sufficient guide, and after due perseverance we came upon the glaciere,
not many yards from that line, on the north slope of the open valley,
about 4,500 feet above the sea.
To prevent cattle from falling into the pit, a wall has been built round
the trees in which it lies. The circumference of this wall is 435 feet,
but there are so many trees at the upper end of the enclosure that this
gives an exaggerated idea of the size of the pit. The men fed while the
preliminary measurements were being made; and when this was
accomplished, they pressed their bottle of wine upon me so hospitably
that I was obliged to antedate the result which its appearance promised,
and plead _mal d'estomac_. Of all things, it is most unwise to give a
reason for a negative, and so it proved in this instance; for they
promptly felicitated themselves and me on the good luck by which it
happened that they had brought a wine famous on all the cote as a remedy
for that somewhat vague complaint--a homoeopathic remedy in allopathic
doses.
The glaciere is entered by a natural pit in the gentle slope of grass,
not much unlike the pit of La Genolliere, but wider, and covered at
the bottom with snow.[19] The first ladder leads down to a ledge of
rock on which bushes and trees grow, and this ledge it is possible to
reach without a ladder; the next ladder leads on to the deep snow, and
descent by any ordinary manner of climbing is in this case quite
impossible.[20] The snow slopes down towards a lofty arch in the rock
which forms the north-west side of the pit, and this arch is the
entrance to the glaciere; it is 28-3/4 feet wide, and as soon as we
passed under it we found that the snow became ice, and it was
necessary to cut steps; for the surface of underground ice is so
slippery, unlike
|