The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-15
A SHATTERED MONUMENT.

Students Visit to the Hospice of the Grim
sei-Writing Names in the Glacier.
w. Matthew Williams.
One of the red-letter days, among the recollec-
tions of my early wanierings, is August 81, 1912,
when started from thu Hospice of the Grmsel
with party of Swiss Swans that assembled
there the day before to visit ~. Agassiz on the
Aar glacier. Having quite recently attended
Professor Jamison's class at the Endnburg Uni
versity, in which he described with infectious
enthusiasm the then wonderful results of the re-
searches Of Charpentier and Agassiz on glacier
motion and glacier extension, the opportunity of
joining such party, which included Professor
Pictet, Keller, Lill, Girard, Marcel and others,
was very exciting to an excitabe youngster like
myself, and every incident remains curiously
fresh IN my memory.
After march to the foot Of the glacier, and
then along the moraine, we reached the huge
bowlder on which was erected the rude tents oc-
cupied by Agassiz and his merry men, and desig-
mated in large letters, Hotel des Ne1f-
University of Neufchatel, and spent several sum-
mers on the ice, in order to study glacier phe-
nomena.
We were Hospitality received by the genial
naturalist. Some half dozen of the Neufchat-
elois were just visible as black specks descend
ing snow peak they called Point de Niege, "
then explored for the first time. A very dan
gerous mishap to one Of them served as the sub
ject of q caricature. The combination of scien-
tho enthusiasm Win JOV1dllty ana daring eXnlO-
tied generally by these Swiss naturalists is
the subject of some very eulogistic passages in
my diary.
/ returned with 'Fourc,p the caricaturist, and
a Genevese professor (Pictet, as | afterwards
learned.) The latter adopted me as his pupil for
the time being, and gave me series of object
lessons on the formation of meridian holes
baignoirs, glacier cones, glacier tables, etc, and
guided me TO beautiful grotto or sub glacial
Cafe des Neufchatelois, hewn out of the solid ice
by the merry men, who first descended natural
crevasse to about twenty feet below the surface,
and then excavated literally
Here l saw a number of those little-known
black creatures Ia variety of lepisma or podura
if am not MISTAKEN that dwell in the ice,
creeping about through its pores; and other in
teresting phenomena demanding long essay for
their description.
/ now learn from Nature September H.
that the classical bowlder on which we all painted
our names in very large capitals, with the red
paint abundantly supplied for such inscriptions
in this visitors book has not descended so peace
fully as we anticipated, but that in 1874 it split
into two pieces and since then the frost has
rent it up into heap of debris The pieces,
however, have been identified by the vestiges of
the paint-pot. Some of the names are determin-
able on the fragments.
They have travelled 2,400 metres between 1910
and 1884. or So metres (lS0a feet) per annum.
and NJ. Forel who has just discovered these
relics, has painted on them in fresh red colors,
his own name, with that of Herr Ritter, and the
date 1874 in order to secure their future identi-
hcation for determining the rate of motion Of
the glaciers which they still float
] read this history with much sadness, having
often contemplated revisit to the Aar glacier
in the hope of finding this monument OF science
still intact and slowly travelling downwards
towards its final resting place on the terminal
moraine, where fondly pictured its arrival a
century or two hence, and its conservation as a
precious relic.