As for any possibility of this great mass of ice melting away and forming again in any one year, it passes belief; there must be at least the cubic contents of a dozen ordinary houses in the cave, and such a mass could hardly be destroyed or formed again in any such short space of time as a fall or spring. This is, therefore, probably a permanent or perennial glacière. THE GLACIÈRE DE CHAPUIS. Starting out from the Glacière de l'Haut-d'Aviernoz we walked across the plateau of the Mont Parmelan, _en route_ for the second glacière. This plateau is a curious rock formation, consisting of what the natives call _lapiaz_, which might be translated "stone-heaps." The plateau is full of great projecting rocks; and myriads of cracks and crevices everywhere rend the surface, and over these crevices one sometimes has to jump. Still, I do not remember any particular difficulty. It was certainly not nearly as bad walking as the taluses of loose rocks one meets at the base of many mountains. Our guide led us for about an hour across the plateau in a southerly direction, and then, looking over the side of the Parmelan, with a sweep of the arm covering south, west and north, he told us that the glacière lay between those points, but he did not know exactly where. This seemed a rather hopeless prospect, so, as we had no clue to the whereabouts of our prospective hole, we descended to a couple of châlets we saw some two hundred meters below, but which at least were in the direction of Annecy. We followed a goat-herd's path which led to the châlets from the plateau, one of those dangerous grass tracks, where nothing would be easier than to make a slip, and where a bad slip might have unpleasant results. This is, however, just the kind of place where every one is particularly careful not to slip. We were careful and so reached the châlets all right, and there we found a strong, intelligent boy, who at once pointed out the place where the glacière was, about half way up the slope we had just come down. So we took him with us, leaving our guide at the châlets to await our return.