above a quarter of a league in breadth. It divides into branches, which run behind the chain of mountains formerly taken notice of. It appears like a frozen amphitheatre, and is bounded by mountains, in whose clefts columns of crystal, as we were informed, are to be found.The hoary majesty of Mont Blanc * * * * * * * I was in danger of rising into poetry, when recollecting the story of Icarus, I thought it best not to trust to my own waxen wings.-I beg leave rather to borrow the following lines, which will please you better than any flight of mine, and prevent me from a fall. So Zembla's rocks (the beauteous work of frost) Fill the bright mountains, prop th' incumbent sky; The gathered winter of a thousand years. Having walked a considerable time on the valley, and being sufficiently regaled with ice, we at length thought of returning to our cottage at Prieuré. Our guides led us down by a shorter and steeper way than that by which we had ascended; and about two hours after we had begun our descent, we found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain. This rapid manner of descending, most people find more severe upon the muscles of the legs and thighs, than even the ascent. For my own part, I was very near exhausted and as we were still a couple of miles distant from our lodgings, it was with the greatest satisfaction that I saw our obsequious mules in waiting to carry us to our cottage; where having at last arrived, and being assembled in a small room, excluded from the view of icy valleys, crystal hills, and snowy mountains, with nothing before us but humble objects, as cold meat, coarse bread, and poor wine, we contrived to pass an hour before going to bed, in talking over the exploits of the day, and the wonders we had seen. Whether there is greater pleasure in this, or in viewing the scenes themselves, is a question not yet decided by the casuists. LETTER XXVI. Geneva. THERE are five or six different Glaciers, which all terminate upon one side of the valley of Chamouni, within the space of about five leagues. These are prodigious collections of snow and ice, formed in the intervals or hollows between the mountains that bound the side of the valley near which Mont Blanc stands. The snow in those hollows being screened from the influence of the sun, the heat of summer can dissolve only a certain portion of it. These magazines of ice and snow are not formed by what falls directly from the heavens into the intervals. They are supplied by the snow which falls during winter on the loftiest parts of Mont Blanc ; large beds or strata of which slide down imperceptibly by their own gravity, and finding no resistance at these intervals, they form long irregular roots around all the adjacent mountains. Five of these enter, by five different embouchures, into the valley of Chamouni, and are called Glaciers, on one of which we had been. At present their surface is from a thousand, or two thousand feet high, above the valley. Their breadth depends on the wideness of the interval between the mountains in which they are formed. Viewed from the valley, they have, in my opinion, a much finer effect than from their summit. The rays of the sun striking with various force on the different parts, according as they are more or less exposed, occasion an unequal dissolution of the ice; and, with the help of a little imagination, give the appearances of columns, arches, and turrets, which are in some places transparent. A fabric of ice in this taste, two thousand feet high, and three times as broad, with the sun shining full upon it, you must acknowledge to be a very singular piece of archi tecture. Our company ascended only the Glacier of Montanvert, which is not the highest, and were contented with a view of the others from the valley; but more curious travellers will surely think it worth their labour to examine each of them more particularly. Some people are so fond of Glaciers, that not satisfied with their present size, they insist positively, that they must necessarily grow larger every year; and they argue the matter thus. But The present existence of the Glaciers is a sufficient proof that there has, at some period or other, been a greater quantity of snow formed during the winter, than the heat of the summer has been able to dissolve. this disproportion must necessarily increase every year, and, of consequence, the Glaciers must augment: because, any given quantity of snow and ice remaining through the course of one summer, must increase the cold of the atmosphere, around it in some degree; which being reinforced by the snows of the succeeding winter, will resist the dissolving power of the sun more the second summer than the first, and still more the third than the second, and so on. The conclusion of this reasoning is, that the Glaciers must grow larger by an increasing ratio every year, till the end of time. For this reason, the authors of this theory regret, that they themselves have been sent into the world so soon; because, if their birth had been delayed for nine or ten thousand years, they should have seen the Glaciers in much greater glory, Mont Blanc being but a Lilliputian at present, in comparison of what it will be then. However rational this may appear, objections have nevertheless been suggested, which I am sorry for; because, when a theory is tolerably consistent, well fabricated, and goodly to behold, nothing can be more vexatious, than to see a plodding officious fellow overthrow the whole structure at once by a dash of his pen, as Harlequin does a house with a touch of his sword, in a pantomime enter tainment. Such cavillers say, that as the Glaciers augment in size, there must be a greater extent of surface for the sun-beams to act upon, and, of consequence, the dissolution will be greater, which must effectually prevent the continual increase contended for. But the other party extricate themselves from this difficulty by roundly asserting, that the additional cold occasioned by the snow and ice already deposited, has a much greater influence in retarding their dissolution, than the increased surface can have in hastening it: and, in confirmation of their system, they tell you, that the oldest inhabitants of Chamouni remember the Glaciers when they were much smaller than at present; and also remember the time when they could walk, from the Valley of Ice, to places behind the mountains, by passages which are now quite chocked up with hills of snow, not above fifty years old. Whether the inhabitants of Chamouni assert this from a laudable partiality to the Glaciers, whom they may now consider (on account of their drawing strangers to visit the valley) as their best neighbours;—or from politeness to the supporters of the above-mentioned opinion ;-or from real observation, I shall not presume to say.-But I myself have heard several of the old people in Chamouni assert the fact. The cavillers being thus obliged to relinquish their former objection, attempt, in the next place, to show, that the above theory leads to an absurdity; because, say they, if the Glaciers go on increasing in bulk ad infinitum, the globe itself would become in process of time a mere appendage to Mont Blanc. The advocates for the continual augmentation of the Glaciers reply, that as this inconveniency has not already happened, there needs no other refutation of the impious doctrine of certain philosophers, who assert that the world has existed from eternity; and as to the globe's becoming an appendage to the mountain, they assure us, that the world will be at an end long before that event can happen. So that those of the most timid natures, and most delicate constitutions, may dismiss their fears on that subject. For my own part, though I wish well to the Glaciers, and all the inhabitants of Chamouni, having passed some days very pleasantly in their company; I will take no part in this controversy, the merits of which I leave to your own judgment. LETTER XXVII. Geneva. HE morning of the day on which we departed from Prieuré, I observed a girl of a very singular appearance sitting before the door of one of the houses. When I spoke to her, she made no answer: but an elderly man, who had been a soldier in the king of Sardinia's service, and my accquaintance since the moment of our arrival, informed me, that this girl was an idiot, and had been so from her birth. He took me to two other houses in the village, in each of which there was one person in the same melancholy situation; and he assured me, that all over the valley of Chamouni, in a family consisting of five or six children, one of them, generally speaking, was a perfect natural. This was confirmed by some others, to whom I afterwards mentioned it. I was told at the same time, that the parents, so far from considering this as a misfortune, looked upon it as an indication of good luck to the rest of the family, and no unhappiness to the individual, whom they always cherish and protect with the utmost tender ness. I asked my soldier, if any of his own family were in |