Once I noticed what appeared to be the sudden and enormous augmentation of the waters of a cascade, but the sound soon informed me that the increase was due to an avalanche which had chosen the track of the cascade for its rush. Soon afterwards my eyes were fixed upon a white slope some thousands of feet above me; I saw the ice give way, and, after a sensible interval, the thunder of another avalanche reached me. A kind of zigzag channel had been worn on the side of the mountain, and through this the avalanche rushed, hidden at intervals, and anon shooting forth, and leaping like a cataract down the precipices. The sound was sometimes continuous, but sometimes broken into rounded explosions which seemed to assert a passionate predominance over the general level of the roar. These avalanches, when they first give way, usually consist of enormous blocks of ice, which are more and more shattered as they descend. Partly to the echoes of the first crash, but mainly, I think, to the shock of the harder masses which preserve their cohesion, the explosions which occur during the descent of the avalanche are to be ascribed. Much of the ice is crushed to powder; and thus, when an avalanche pours cataract-like over a ledge, the heavier masses, being less influenced by the atmospheric resistance, shoot forward like descending rockets, leaving the lighter powder in trains behind them. Such is the material of which a class of the smaller glaciers in the Alps is composed. They are the products of avalanches, the crushed ice being recompacted into a solid mass, which exhibits on a smaller scale most of the characteristics of the large glaciers. After three hours' absence I reascended to the hotel, breakfasted, and afterwards returned with Mr. Huxley to the glacier. While we were engaged upon it the weather suddenly changed; lightning flashed about the summits of the Jungfrau, and thunder "leaped" among her crags. Heavy rain fell, but it cleared up afterwards with magical speed, and we returned to our hotel. Heedless of the forebodings of many prophets of evil weather we set out for Grindelwald. The scene from the summit of the Little Scheideck was exceedingly grand. The upper air exhibited a commotion which we did not experience; clouds were wildly driven against the flanks of the Eiger, the Jungfrau thundered behind, while in front of us a magnificent rainbow, fixing one of its arms in the valley of Grindelwald, and, throwing the other right over the crown of the Wetterhorn, clasped the mountain in its embrace. Through jagged apertures in the clouds floods of golden light were poured down the sides of the mountain. On the slopes were innumerable chalets, glistening in the sunbeams, herds browsing peacefully and shaking their mellow bells; while the blackness of the pine-trees, crowded into woods, or scattered in pleasant clusters over alp and valley, contrasted forcibly with the lively green of the fields. [Sidenote: THE HEISSE PLATTE. 1856.]