From the Aiguille du Geant and Les Periades a glacier descended, which was separated by the promontory of La Noire from the glacier proceeding from the Col du Geant. A small moraine was formed between them, which is marked _a_ upon the diagram, Fig. 7. The great mass of the glacier descending from the Col du Geant came next, and this was bounded on the side nearest to Trelaporte by a small moraine _b_, the origin of which I could not see, its upper portion being shut out by a mountain promontory. Between the moraine _b_ and the actual side of the valley was another little glacier, derived from some of the lateral tributaries. It was, however, between the moraines _a_ and _b_ that the great mass of the Glacier du Geant really lay. At the promontory of the Tacul the lateral moraines of the Glacier des Periades and of the Glacier de Lechaud united to form the medial moraine _c_ of the Mer de Glace. Carrying the eye across the Lechaud, we had the moraine _d_ formed by the union of the lateral moraines of the Lechaud and Talefre; further to the left was the moraine _e_, which came from the Jardin, and beyond it was the second lateral moraine of the Talefre. The Mer de Glace is formed by the confluence of the whole of the glaciers here named; being forced at Trelaporte through a passage, the width of which appears considerably less than that of the single tributary, the Glacier du Geant. In the ice near Trelaporte the blue veins of the glacier are beautifully shown; but they vary in distinctness according to the manner in which they are looked at. When regarded obliquely their colour is not so pronounced as when the vision plunges deeply into them. The weathered ice of the surface near Trelaporte could be cloven with great facility; I could with ease obtain plates of it a quarter of an inch thick, and possessing two square feet of surface. On the 28th of July I followed the veins several times from side to side across the Geant portion of the Mer de Glace; starting from one side, and walking along the veins, my route was directed obliquely downwards towards the axis of the tributary. At the axis I was forced to turn, in order to keep along the veins, and now ascended along a line which formed nearly the same angle with the axis at the other side. Thus the veins led me as it were along the two sides of a triangle, the vertex of which was near the centre of the glacier. The vertex was, however, in reality rounded off, and the figure rather resembled a hyperbola, which tended to coincidence with its asymptotes. This observation corroborates those of Professor Forbes with regard to the position of the veins, and, like him, I found that at the centre the veining, whose normal direction would be transverse to the glacier, was contorted and confused. [Sidenote: WASTING OF ICE. 1857.]