We subsequently spent several hours upon the glacier; and on this day I noticed for the first time a contemporaneous exhibition of _bedding_ and _structure_ to which I shall refer at another place. We passed finally to the left bank of the glacier, at some distance below the base of the AEggischhorn, and traced its old moraines at intervals along the flanks of the bounding mountain. At the summit of the ridge we found several fine old _roches moutonnees_, on some of which the scratchings of a glacier long departed were well preserved; and from the direction of the scratchings it might be inferred that the ice moved down the mountain towards the valley of the Rhone. A plunge into a lonely mountain lake ended the day's excursion. [Sidenote: END OF THE ALETSCH GLACIER. 1858.] On the 7th of August we quitted this noble station. Sending our guide on to Viesch to take a conveyance and proceed with our luggage down the valley, Ramsay and myself crossed the mountains obliquely, desiring to trace the glacier to its termination. We had no path, but it was hardly possible to go astray. We crossed spurs, climbed and descended pleasant mounds, sometimes with the soft grass under our feet, and sometimes knee-deep in rhododendrons. It took us several hours to reach the end of the glacier, and we then looked down upon it merely. It lay couched like a reptile in a wild gorge, as if it had split the mountain by its frozen snout. We afterwards descended to Moerill, where we met our guide and driver; thence down the valley to Visp; and the following evening saw us lodged at the Monte Rosa hotel in Zermatt. The boiling point of water on the table of the _salle a manger_, I found to be 202.58 deg. Fahr. [Sidenote: MEADOWS INVADED BY ICE. 1858.] On the following morning I proceeded without my friend to the Goerner glacier. As is well known, the end of this glacier has been steadily advancing for several years, and when I saw it, the meadow in front of it was partly shrivelled up by its irresistible advance. I was informed by my host that within the last sixty years forty-four chalets had been overturned by the glacier, the ground on which they stood being occupied by the ice; at present there are others for which a similar fate seems imminent. In thus advancing the glacier merely takes up ground which belonged to it in former ages, for the rounded rocks which rise out of the adjacent meadow show that it once passed over them.