meant for. He was evidently disappointed with the representation of his
own cave, for he could see nothing but a network of lines, with
unintelligible words written here and there, and after some hesitation
he confessed that it was not the least like it. A little explanation
soon set that right, and then he began to plead vigorously for the wall
which surrounded the trees at the mouth of the pit. Why was it not put
in? He was told, because it could not be seen from below; but
nevertheless he strongly urged its introduction, on the ground that he
had built it himself, and it was such a well-built wall; facts which far
more than balanced any little impossibility that might otherwise have
prevented its appearance. After we had reached the grass of the outer
world again, he made me sketch the entrance to the pit, pointing to the
containing wall with parental pride, and standing over the sketch-book
and the sketcher with an umbrella which speedily turned inside out
under the combined pressure of wind, and rain, and years; a feat which
it had already performed _des fois_, he said, in the course of his
acquaintance with it.

Before finally leaving the glacière, I examined the structure of the
great stream of ice, at different points near the top of the limiting
wall. From its outward appearance it might have been expected to be
rough, but it was not so; it was knotty to the eye, but perfectly smooth
to the foot, and, when cut, showed itself perfectly clear and limpid. It
did not separate under the axe into misshapen pieces, with faces of
every possible variation from regularity, that is, with what is called
vitreous fracture, but rather separated into a number of nuts of limpid
ice, each being of a prismatic form, and of much regularity in shape and
size. It was smooth, dark-grey, and clear; free from air, and free from
surface lines; very hard, and suggesting the idea of coarse internal
granulation. In the large ice-streams of some darker glacières, this ice