After our return we spent every available hour upon the ice, working at questions which shall be treated under their proper heads, each day's work being wound up by an evening of perfect enjoyment. Roast mutton and fried potatoes were our incessant fare, for which, after a little longing for a change at first, we contracted a final and permanent love. As the year advanced, moreover, and the grass sprouted with augmented vigour on the slopes of the Montanvert, the mutton, as predicted by our host, became more tender and juicy. We had also some capital Sallenches beer, cold as the glacier water, but effervescent as champagne. Such were our food and drink. After dinner we gathered round the pine-fire, and I can hardly think it possible for three men to be more happy than we then were. It was not the goodness of the conversation, nor any high intellectual element, which gave the charm to our gatherings; the gladness grew naturally out of our own perfect health, and out of the circumstances of our position. Every fibre seemed a repository of latent joy, which the slightest stimulus sufficed to bring into conscious action. [Sidenote: A GLACIER "BLOWER." 1857.] On the 17th I penetrated with Simond through thick gloom to the Tacul; on the 18th we set stakes at the same place: on the same day, while crossing the medial moraine of the Talefre, a little below the cascade, a singular noise attracted my attention; it seemed at first as if a snake were hissing about my feet. On changing my position the sound suddenly ceased, but it soon recommenced. There was some snow upon the glacier, which I removed, and placed my ear close to the ice, but it was difficult to fix on the precise spot from which the sound issued. I cut away the disintegrated portion of the surface, and at length discovered a minute crack, from which a stream of air issued, which I could feel as a cold blast against my hand. While cutting away the surface further, I stopped the little "blower." A marmot screamed near me, and while I paused to look at the creature scampering up the crags, the sound commenced again, changing its note variously--hissing like a snake, singing like a kettle, and sometimes chirruping intermittently like a bird. On passing my fingers to and fro over the crack, I obtained a succession of audible puffs; the current was sufficiently strong to blow away the corner of a gauze veil held over the fissure. Still the crack was not wide enough to permit of the entrance of my finger nail; and to issue with such force from so minute a rent the air must have been under considerable pressure. The origin of the blower was in all probability the following:--When the ice is recompacted after having descended a cascade, it is next to certain that chambers of air will be here and there enclosed, which, being powerfully squeezed afterwards, will issue in the manner described whenever a crack in the ice furnishes it with a means of escape.