from north to south, and as they were bearing to the east they had to cross every one of them. Most were filled with water which overflowed the glacier, and disappeared in the snowdrift, and in some places they rode through the water on the ice. None of these rifts were too broad to be crossed in one place or another, either higher up the glacier towards the south, or at its lower and north end. If they had met with a rift which they could not pass, they intended to have made a snow-bridge over it, rather than return. In this way they crossed the ice of the glacier. Next came another bed of snow, over which they rode for some while; but it was very heavy, as the day was exceedingly warm and mild. “When they were within a short distance of what seemed to them to be the highest point of the glacier on the east, a mist set in on both sides from the north and south, leaving a clear space towards the east, so that they could see the bright sky exactly opposite their faces; and the reason of this was that the mountains rose on either side, leaving a sort of depression between them, along which they were going as they held on due east. This was not discouraging, as it showed that the mountain peaks caught the mist, and left the lower ground clear. At the same time, they heard the rush of water beneath their feet without being able to see the stream. The noise indicated a volume much larger than that which they had seen pouring through the ravine, and they conjectured that the sub-glacial river divided into several streams before discharging itself. “They now passed from the snow to a gravelly soil, devoid of grass. It was a smooth ridge of sandstone, like the bank of a mountain torrent. The glaciers now sloped towards the north-east, whilst some tended towards the east; but right across the glaciers there lay a hollow trough, and in many places along the edge black rocks shot out of the snow. On the north side were lofty and craggy fells, connected by snowdrifts and strips of shale; and the glacier range rose considerably on the north side.