More Science From an Easy Chair

r when I returned there at the end of August. For three weeks there was no flood of sunshine, no blazing of a cloudles

y to find the pearl-like surface of the great Lake Leman transformed into lead. Not once in eight days did the celestial fortress called Les Dents du Midi reveal its existence, although we knew it was there, immensely high and remote, far away above the great buttresses of the Rhone valley. So completely was i

on tunnel, and then for eight days the same leaden aspect of sky, mountain, and lake as that which we had left in Switzerland was maintained. Even this could not spoil altogether the beauty and interest of the fine old garden of the Borromeo family on the Isola Bella. Really big cypress trees, magnificent specimens of the Weymouth pine-the white pine of the United States, Pinus strobus, first brought from the St. Lawrence in 1705, and planted in Wiltshire by Lord Weymouth-a splendid camphor tree, strange varieties of the hydrangea, and many other old-fashioned shrubs adorn the quaint and well-designed terraces of that se

son fruit, was so abundant as actually to colour the landscape, whilst a huge yellow mullen nearly as big as a hollyhock, and bright Alpine "pinks," were there in profusion. Before the night fell, a long, furry animal, twice the size of a squirrel, and of dark brown colour, crossed the road with a characteristic undulating movement, a few feet in front of our carriage. It was a pine-marten, the largest of the weasel and pole-cat tribe, still to be found in our own north country. It must not be confused with the paler beech-marten of Anne of Brittany, which often takes up its abode in the roofs of Breton houses, according to my own experience in Dinard and the neighbourhood. Night fell, and our horses were still toiling up the mountain road. Imp

the precipice, a snowy white, frozen cascade of a thousand feet in height. It looks even nearer than it is, and the gigantic teeth of white ice at the top of the fall seem no bigger than sentry-boxes, though we know they are more nearly the size of church steeples. The celebrated Furca road zig-zags up the mountain side for a thousand feet close to the glacier, and when you drive up it and reach the height of the Belvedere, you can step on to the ice close to the road. Then you can mount on to the flat, unbroken surface of the broad glacier stream above the fall, and trace the glacier to the snow-covered mountain-tops

du glacier," or "Gletcherk?rne," characteristic of glacier ice as contrasted with lake ice. This structure of the glacier ice is peculiar to it, and is only made evident where the sun's rays penetrate it and melt the less pure ice which holds together the crystalline nodules. According to Dr. J. Young Buchanan, these nodules are masses of ice crystals comparatively free from mineral matter, whilst the water around them, which freezes less readily, contains mineral impurities in solution. The presence of saline matter in solution lowers, in proportion to its amount, the freezing-point of the water. Accordingly, although froze

rous spot we inspected some plump marmots, who were leading a happy life of ease and plenty in a large cage erected in front of the hotel; then in absolutely perfect weather we mounted the Grimsel road. We heard the frequent whistling of uncaged marmots as we ascended, and saw many of the little beasts sitting up on the rocks and diving into concealing crevices as we approached, just as do their smaller but closely allied cousins the prairie marmots (so-called "prairie dogs") of North America. The view, as one ascends the Grimsel, of the snow-peaks around Gletsch is a fine one in itself, but is vastly enhanced in beauty by the plunge downwards of the rocky gorge made by the Rhone as it leaves the flat-bottomed amphitheatre of its birth. The top of the Grimsel Pass, which is a little over 7,000 feet above sea-level, is the most desolate and bare of all such mountain passes. The rock is dark grey, almost black, and of unusually hard character. It is unstratified, and so resistant that it is everywhere worn into smooth, rounded surfaces, instead

ber,