The subject of Greenland ice is one about which there exists much popular misapprehension. As before stated, I do not here propose to enter into a minute discussion of the manner of its formation and movement, but will content myself with simply recognizing the fact, and with drawing such comparison as may be needful between the mountain ice of Greenland and similar deposits in other quarters of the world. Under this head I trust that the reader may find sufficient interest in the line of argument to follow me through a few pages, in a general review of the whole field. At a later period I will recur to some more specific details of information and discussion, as the narrative carries us to other objects of inquiry. In order to make the subject clear, I cannot do better than to cite my illustrations from the region of the Alps, where, through a long period, earnest explorers have laboriously pursued their inquiries. One of the most important and gifted of these was M. Le Chanonie Rendu, Bishop of Annecy. This excellent and worthy man, and sincere devotee as well of science as of religion, died some seven years ago. A lifetime spent among the rugged crags and ice-cliffs of the Alpine Mountains had familiarized him with every phase of Nature in that region of sublimity and home of the wonderful. Professor Tyndall says truly of him, that "his knowledge was extensive, his reasoning close and accurate, and his faculty of observation extraordinary;" and he early brought his splendid faculties of mind and his energy of body and profound love of truth to bear upon the elucidation of those natural phenomena which were constantly exhibited in his presence. After many years of conscientious toil, he gave to the world the results of his systematic investigations in an essay which was published in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Savoy, entitled, "_Théorie des Glaciers de la Savoie_." [Sidenote: ORIGIN OF GLACIERS.] I will use the information acquired from this source as the basis of my present argument,--to demonstrate, by the law as interpreted to us from the Alps by this learned priest of Annecy, how the Arctic continent receives its cloak of crystals, and how it discharges the superabundant accumulation. Rendu first observes the piling up of the mountain snows. The snow falling upon the mountains is partly converted into water, which runs away to the river, and through the river to the sea; and is partly converted into ice. The ice thus formed Rendu estimates to equal, in the Alps, fifty-eight inches annually,--"which would make Mont Blanc four hundred feet higher in a century, and four thousand feet higher in a thousand years." "Now it is evident," observes he, "that nothing like this can occur in Nature."