There was a cowhouse near the chalet, and above it, raised on pillars of pine, and approached by a ladder, was a loft, which contained a quantity of dry hay: this my guide shook to soften the lumps, and erected an eminence for my head. I lay down, drawing my plaid over me, but Auer affirmed that this would not be a sufficient protection against the cold; he therefore piled hay upon me to the shoulders, and proposed covering up my head also. This, however, I declined, though the biting coldness of the air, which sometimes blew in upon us, afterwards proved to me the wisdom of the suggestion. Having set me right, my chamois-hunter prepared a place for himself, and soon his heavy breathing informed me that he was in a state of bliss which I could only envy. One by one the stars crossed the apertures in the roof. Once the Pleiades hung above me like a cluster of gems; I tried to admire them, but there was no fervour in my admiration. Sometimes I dozed, but always as this was about to deepen into positive sleep it was rudely broken by the clamour of a group of pigs which occupied the ground-floor of our dwelling. The object of each individual of the group was to secure for himself the maximum amount of heat, and hence the outside members were incessantly trying to become inside ones. It was the struggle of radical and conservative among the pachyderms, the politics being determined by the accident of position. [Sidenote: THE GEBATSCH GLACIER. 1856.] I rose at five o'clock on the 1st of September, and after a breakfast of black bread and milk ascended the glacier as far as practicable. We once quitted it, crossed a promontory, and descended upon one of its branches, which was flanked by some fine old moraines. We here came upon a group of seven marmots, which with yells of terror scattered themselves among the rocks. The points of the glacier beyond my reach I examined through a telescope; along the faces of the sections the lines of stratification were clearly shown; and in many places where the mass showed manifest signs of lateral pressure, I thought I could observe the cleavage passing though the strata. The point, however, was too important to rest upon an observation made from such a distance, and I therefore abstained from mentioning it subsequently. I examined the fissures and the veining, and noticed how the latter became most perfect in places where the pressure was greatest. The effect of _oblique_ pressure was also finely shown: at one place the thrust of the descending glacier was opposed by the resistance offered by the side of the valley, the direction of the force being oblique to the side; the consequence was a structure nearly parallel to the valley, and consequently oblique to the thrust which I believe to be its cause. [Sidenote: A CHAMOIS ON THE ROCKS. 1856.]