t a certain height, while lower that snow becomes rain."

"Well, then, this valley we are looking at ought to be snow, not ice."

"Snow is ice in the form of light flocculent crystals, is it not? Why,
at home, if you take up moist snow and press it hard in your hands, you
can almost turn it into ice. If you placed it in a press, and applied
much force, it would become perfectly clear ice. Well, there's pressure
enough here to turn it into ice; and besides, the snow is always melting
in the hot sun, and then freezing again at night."

"Yes, I see!" cried Saxe; "but it does seem queer. Why, we've got
summer here, with flowers and bees and butterflies, and if we go down to
that glacier, I suppose we can step on to winter."

"Yes, my lad; and if we like to climb a little higher up the ice, we can
place ourselves in such severe winter that we should be frozen to
death."

"Then we will not go," said Saxe, laughing. "You told me one day--No,
you didn't, it was in a story I read, `man is best as he is.' But I
say, Mr Dale, how about the river? doesn't it come from the glacier?"

"Yes, of course. These vast glaciers are the sources of the great Swiss
and Italian rivers. The Rhine and the Rhone both begin up in the
mountains here, and the Aar and the Reuss start pretty close to them.
When we get down here you will see how this stream runs from a little
ice-cave."

"But what makes it so dirty?"

"My good fellow, we have come to climb, and my name is not Barlow. You
must read and search out these things. You know how that stone or mass
fell with a roar lower down?"

"Not likely to forget it, sir," replied Saxe, with a laugh.

"Well, the stones are always falling from the bare sides of the gorge;
they drop on to the glacier, and in course of time are washed by the
melting ice into the crevasses and down to the bare rock beneath the
glacier. There they glide down, with its weight upon them, right over
the rock, and the surface is worn off from the fallen stone and the bed
rock in a thin paste, which is washed away by the glacier. Then, as it
descends, it of course discolours the water."

"Shall we go down to the toe of the glacier!" said the guide.

"Yes; come along."

"Can we trust the young herr to descend?"

Dale leaned forward to gaze down the rugged slope, which was excessively
steep, but broken up into rift and gully, offering plenty of foot and
hand-hold.

"What do you think, Saxe?" he said. "Can