under him and bounded down, apparently over an incline of like stones, to a distance which sounded very alarming.  But he would not give in, and at length, descending still further by means of the snow in which the hole was made, he was rewarded by finding a solid block which bore his weight, and he speedily disappeared altogether, summoning me to follow.  I proposed to light a candle first, not caring to go through such a hole, in such a floor, into no one knew what; but he was so very peremptory, evidently thinking that if he had gone through without a pioneering candle his monsieur might do the same, that there was nothing for it but to obey.  The hole was very near the junction of the floor with the slope of stones where the floor terminated, and the space between the hole and the slope seemed to be filled up with a confused mass of snow and ice, in which the snow largely predominated; so that there was good hold for hands and feet in passing down to the stones, which might be about 7 feet below the upper surface of the floor.  Here we crouched in the darkness, with our faces turned away from the presumed slope of stones, till a light was struck.  The accomplice did not find it in the bond that he should go down, and he preferred to reserve his energies for his own peculiar glaciere.

[Illustration:  LOWER GLACIERE OF THE PRE DE S. LIVRES.]

As soon as the candle had mastered a portion of the darkness, we found that we were squatting on a steeply sloping descent of large blocks of stone, while in face of us was a magnificent wall of ice, evidently the continuation of the wall above, marked most plainly with horizontal lines.  This wall passed down vertically to join the slope on which we were, at a depth below our feet which the light of the candle had not yet fathomed.  The horizontal bands were so clear, that, if we had possessed climbing apparatus, we could have counted the number of layers with accuracy.  Of course we scrambled down the stones, and found after a time that the angle formed by the ice-wall and the slope of stones was choked up at the bottom by large pieces of rock, one piled on another just as they had fallen from the higher parts.  These blocks were so large, that we were able to get down among the interstices, in a spiral manner, for some little distance; and when we were finally stopped, still the ice-wall passed on below our feet, and there was no possible chance of determining to what depth it went.  The atmosphere at this point was a sort of frozen vapour, most unpleasant in all respects, and the candles burned very dimly.  The thermometer stood at 32 deg., half-way down the slope of stones.