of a lower grade of refrangibility than the blue. The lunar shadows had already become weak, and were finally washed away by the light of the east. But while the shadows were at their greatest depth, and therefore least invaded by the dawn, I examined the firmament with a Nicol's prism. The moonlight, as I have said, came from the left, and right in front of me was a mountain of dark brown rock, behind which spread a heaven of the most impressive depth and purity. I looked over the mountain crest through the prism. In one position of the instrument the blue was not sensibly affected; in the rectangular position it was so far quenched as to reduce the sky and the dark mountain beneath it to the same uniform hue. The outline of the mountain was scarcely traceable; it could hardly be detached from the sky above it. This was the direction in which the prism showed its maximum power; in no other direction was the quenching of the light of the sky so perfect. And it was at right angles to the lunar rays; so that, as regards the polarisation of the sky, the beams of the moon behave exactly like those of the sun.

The glacier along which we first marched was a trunk of many tributaries, and consequently of many "medial moraines," such moraines being always one less in number than the tributaries. But two principal branches absorbed all the others as constituents. One of these descended from the Great and Little Nesthorn and their spurs; the other from the Aletschhorn. Up this latter branch we steered from the junction. Hitherto the surface of the glacier, disintegrated by the previous day's sun, and again hardened by the night's frost, crackled under our feet; but on the Aletschhorn branch the ice was coated by a kind of fur, resembling the nap of velvet: it was as soft as a carpet, but at the same time perfectly firm to the grip of the boot. The sun was hidden behind the mountain; and thus steeped in shade, we could enjoy, with spirits unblunted by the heat, the loveliness and grandeur of the scene. Before us was the pyramid of the Aletschhorn, bearing its load of glaciers, and thrusting above them its pinnacle of rock; while right and left towered and fell to snowy cols such other peaks as usually hang about a mountain of nearly 14,000 feet elevation. And amid them all, with a calmness corresponding to the deep seclusion of the place, wound the beautiful system of glaciers along which we had been marching for nearly three hours. I know nothing which can compare in point of glory with these winter palaces of the mountaineer, under the opening illumination of the morning. And the best of it is, that no right of property in the scene could enhance its value. To Switzerland belongs the rock-to us the sublimity and beauty of mass, form, colour, and grouping. They had been letting off fireworks in France; I thought of them, but envied not the emperor.

(1) See FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW, February, 1869, p. 239.

(2) "Glaciers of the Alps," p. 264.

"In

the midst of a puddly moor I am afraid to say how glad I am:" which is a strong way of affirming the influence of the inner man as regards the enjoyment of external nature. And surely the inner man is a high factor in the effect. Thus, to-day, not only is the world outside magnificent, but I am well and without a care; and, like light falling upon the polished plate of the photographer, the glory of the Alps descends upon a soul prepared to receive its image and superscription.

Thus, the oxygen of the hills1 wisely breathed; the food of the hills wisely eaten; the waters of the hills wisely, that is sparingly, drunk, but freely used as plunge and douche in lake and cataract; the light and warmth of the sun; the muscle's action and the brain's repose can lift a man from the very sediment of life to this moral and esthetic height, and even tap the closed springs of religious emotion. Blessed are the uses of Materialism! Wise men know this, and act upon their knowledge. During the last session of Parliament, for example, a statesman, whose bared head, Phidias, in passing, would have turned twice to look upon, practised daily upon the bicycle. There was a mystic value in this morning rite-it was a fresh illustration of the connection of Physics with Intellect, Will, and Emotion. We begin here with mere mechanics, and from the rhythmic motion of a pair of legs and treadles pass on to the expanded chest, the quickened circulation, the freshened brain; and thence in unbroken sequence to those finer essences which descend as sweetness and light on the House of Commons, or fall like the honey from Chrysostom's lips in the presence of a deputation. Thrice blessed, surely, in this case, for us and him, are the uses of Materialism!

Mind, like force, is known to us only through matter. Take, then, what hypothesis you will-consider matter as an instrument through which the insulated mind exercises its powers, or consider both as so inextricably mixed that they stand or fall together; from both points of view the care of the body 2 is equally important. The morality of clean blood ought to be one of the first lessons taught us by our pastors and masters. The physical is the substratum of the spiritual, and this fact gives to the food we eat and to the air we breathe a transcendental significance. Boldly and truly writes Mr. Ruskin, "Whenever you throw your window wide open in the morning, you let in Athena, as wisdom and fresh air at the same instant; and whenever you draw a pure, long, full breath of right heaven, you take Athena into your heart, through your blood; and with the blood into thoughts of the brain." No higher value than this could be assigned to atmospheric oxygen.

(1) Strictly speaking, the oxygen of the Bel Alp, the air of which is pure and the fare wholesome and plentiful.

(2) It will not be supposed that I here mean the pampering of the body, or the stuffing of the body. The shortening of the supplies, or a good monkish fast at intervals, is often the best care that could be bestowed upon the body.

Precisely three hours after we had quitted our hotel the uniform gradient of the Aletschhorn glacier came to an end. It now suddenly steepened to run up the mountain. At the base we halted to have some food, a huge slab of granite serving us for a table. It is not good to go altogether without food in these climbing expeditions; nor is it good to eat copiously. Here a little and there a little, as the need makes itself apparent, is the prudent course. For, left to itself, the stomach infallibly sickens, and the forces of the system ooze away. Should the sickness have set in so as to produce a recoil from nutriment, the stomach must be forced to yield. A small modicum of food usually suffices to set it right. The strongest guides and the sturdiest porters have sometimes to use this compulsion. "Sie müssen sich zwingen." The guides refer the capriciousness of the stomach at great elevations to the air. This may be a cause, but I am inclined to think that something is also due to the motion-the long-continued action of the same muscles upon the diaphragm. The condition of things antecedent to the journey must also be taken into account. There is little, if any, sleep; the starting meal is taken at an unusual hour; and if the start be made from a mountain cave, or cabin, instead of from the bed of an hotel, the deviation from normal conditions is aggravated. It could not be the mere difference of height between Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, which formerly rendered their effects upon the human system so different. It is that, in the one case, you had the melted snow of the Grands Mulets for your coffee, and a bare plank for your bed; while in the other you were fortified by the comparative comforts of the Riffel. On the present occasion I had a bottle of milk, which suits me better than either wine or brandy. That and a crust are all I need to keep my vigour up and to ward off le mal des montagnes.

After half an hour's halt we made ready for the slopes, meeting first a quantity of moraine matter mingled with patches of snow, and afterwards the rifted glacier. We threaded our way among the crevasses, and here I paid particular attention to the deportment of my guide. The want of confidence, or rather the absence of that experience of a guide's powers, on which alone perfect reliance can be based, is a serious drawback to the climber. This source of weakness has often come home to me since the death of my brave friend, Bennen. His loss to me was like that of an arm to fighter. But I was glad to notice that my present guide was not likely to err on the score of rashness. He left a wider margin between us and accident than I should have deemed necessary; he sounded with his staff where I should have trod without hesitation; and, knowing my own caution, I had good reason to be satisfied with his. Still, notwithstanding all his vigilance, he once went into a concealed fissure-only waist deep, however, and he could certainly have rescued himself without the

tug of the rope which united us. The beauty of those higher crevasses is mightily enhanced by the long transparent icicles which hang from their eaves, and which, loosened by the sun, fall into them with ringing sound. After some time we quitted the ice, striking a rocky shoulder of the mountain. The frosts of ages had pulled the rock to pieces, and heaped its fragments together to an incoherent ridge. Over the lichened stones we worked our upward way, our course, though rough, being entirely free from danger. On this ridge the sun first found us, striking us at intervals, and at intervals disappearing behind the sloping ridge of the Aletschhorn. We attained the summit of the rocks, and had now the upper reaches of the névé before us. To our left the glacier was greatly torn, exposing fine vertical sections, deep blue pits and chasms, which were bottomless to vision; and ledges, from whose copings hung vaster stalactites than those observed below. Above us was the customary Bergschrund, but the spring avalanches had swept over it, and closed it; and since the spring it had not been able to open its jaws. At this we aimed; reached it, and crossed it, and immediately found ourselves at the base of the final cap of the mountain.

Looking at the Aletschhorn from the Sparrenhorn, or from any other point which commands a similar view of the pyramid, on the ridge which falls from the summit to the right, and a considerable distance down, is seen a tooth or pinnacle of rock, which encloses with the ridge itself a deep indentation. At this gap we now aimed. We varied our ascent from steep snow to rock, and from steep rock to snow, avoiding the difficulties when possible, and facing them when necessary. We met some awkward places, but none whose subjugation was otherwise than pleasant, and at length came to the edge of the arête. Looking over this, the wild facette of the pyramid fell almost sheer to the Middle Aletsch glacier, which was a familiar sight to me, for years ago I had strolled over it alone. Below it was the Great Aletsch, into which the Middle Aletsch flowed, and beyond both was the well-known ridge of the Eggischhorn. We halted, but only for a moment. Turning suddenly to the left, we ascended the rocky ridge to a sheltered nook which suggested a brief rest and a slight renewal of that nutriment which, as stated, is so necessary to the well-being of the climber.

From time to time during the ascent I examined the polarisation of the sky. I should not have halted had not the fear of haze or clouds upon the summit admonished me. Indeed, as we ascended, one thin, arrowy cloud shot like a comet's tail through the air above us, spanning sixty or seventy degrees of the heavens. Never, however, have I observed the sky to be of a deeper, darker, and purer blue. It was to examine this colour that I ascended the Aletschhorn, and I wished to observe it where the hue was deepest and the

polarisation most complete. You can look through very different atmospheric thicknesses at right angles to the solar beams. When, for example, the sun is in the eastern or western horizon, you can look across the sun's rays towards the northern or southern horizon, or you can look across them to the zenith. In the latter direction the blue is deeper and purer than in either of the former, the proportion of the polarised light of the sky to its total light being also a maximum. The sun, however, when I was on the Aletschhorn was not in the horizon, but high above it. I placed my staff upright on Inclining the staff from the

a platform of snow. It cast a shadow. sun, the shadow lengthened for a time, reached its major limit, and then shortened. The simplest geometrical consideration will show that the staff when its shadow was longest was perpendicular to the solar rays; the atmosphere in this direction was shallower and the sky bluer than in any other direction perpendicular to the same rays. Along this line I therefore looked through the Nicol. The light could be quenched so as to leave a residue as dark as the firmament upon a moonless night; but still there was a residue-the polarisation was not complete. Nor was the colour, however pure its appearance, by any means a monochromatic blue. A disk of selenite, gradually thickening from the centre to the circumference, when placed between the Nicol and the sky, yielded vivid iris colours. The blue was very marked; but there was vivid purple, which requires an admixture of red to produce it. There was also a bright green, and some yellow. In fact, however purely blue the sky might seem, it sent to the eye all the colours of the spectrum: it owed its colour to the predominance of blue, that is to say, to the enfeeblement, and not to the extinction, of the other colours of the spectrum. The green was particularly vivid in the portion of the sky nearest to the mountains, where the light was "daffodil."

A pocket spectroscope confirmed these results. Permitting the light of an illuminated cloud to enter the slit, a vivid spectrum was observed; but on passing beyond the rim of the cloud to the adjacent firmament, a sudden fall in the intensity of all the less refrangible rays of the spectrum was observed. There was an absolute shortening of the spectrum in the direction of the red, through the total extinction of the extreme red. The fall in luminousness was also very striking as far as the green; the blue also suffered, but not so much as the other colours.

The scene as we ascended grew more and more superb, both as regards grouping and expansion. Viewed from the Bel Alp the manypeaked Dom is a most imposing mountain; it has there no competitor. The mass of the Weisshorn is hidden, its summit alone appearing. The Matterhorn, also, besides being more distant, has a portion of its pyramid cut obliquely away by the slope of the same ridge that