On the 16th of August, 1856, I received my Alpenstock from the hands of Dr. Hooker, in the garden of the Pension Ober, at Interlaken. It bore my name, not marked, however, by the vulgar brands of the country, but by the solar beams which had been converged upon it by the pocket lens of my friend. I was the companion of Mr. Huxley, and our first aim was to cross the Wengern Alp. Light and shadow enriched the crags and green slopes as we advanced up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and each occupied himself with that which most interested him. My companion examined the drift, I the cleavage, while both of us looked with interest at the contortions of the strata to our left, and at the shadowy, unsubstantial aspect of the pines, gleaming through the sunhaze to our right. [Sidenote: FOLDED ROCKS. 1856.] What was the physical condition of the rock when it was thus bent and folded like a pliant mass? Was it necessarily softer than it is at present? I do not think so. The shock which would crush a railway carriage, if communicated to it at once, is harmless when distributed over the interval necessary for the pushing in of the buffer. By suddenly stopping a cock from which water flows you may burst the conveyance pipe, while a slow turning of the cock keeps all safe. Might not a solid rock by ages of pressure be folded as above? It is a physical axiom that no body is perfectly hard, none perfectly soft, none perfectly elastic. The hardest body subjected to pressure yields, however little, and the same body when the pressure is removed cannot return to its original form. If it did not yield in the slightest degree it would be perfectly hard; if it could completely return to its original shape it would be perfectly elastic. Let a pound weight be placed upon a cube of granite; the cube is flattened, though in an infinitesimal degree. Let the weight be removed, the cube _remains_ a little flattened; it cannot quite return to its primitive condition. Let us call the cube thus flattened No. 1. Starting with No. 1 as a new mass, let the pound weight be laid upon it; the mass yields, and on removing the weight it cannot return to the dimensions of No. 1; we have a more flattened mass, No. 2. Proceeding in this manner, it is manifest that by a repetition of the process we should produce a series of masses, each succeeding one more flattened than the former. This appears to be a necessary consequence of the physical axiom referred to above.