She objected that the guide was there; but we assured her that he was asleep, or if he wasn't it made no matter; so when I reached the top, she emerged shapeless from a temporary hiding-place, clutching her long hedge-stake, and feeling, she said--and certainly looking--a good deal like a gorilla.

The most baffling part of the trouble having been thus got over, we soon joined A., blue already, and shivering on the snow.

The sun now reached very nearly to the bottom of the pit, and I went up once more for thermometers and other things, leaving a measure with my sisters, and begging them to amuse themselves by taking the dimensions of the snow: on my return, however, to the top of the ladder, I found them combining over a little bottle, and they informed me plaintively that they had been taking medicinal brandy and snow instead of measurements,--a very necessary precaution, for anyone to whom brandy is not a greater nuisance than utter cold.

We found the dimensions of the bottom of the pit, i.e.of the field of snow on which we stood, to be 31-1/2 feet by 21; but we were unable to form any idea of the depth of the snow, beyond the fact that 'up to the ancle' was its prevailing condition.

The boy told us, when we rejoined him, that when he and others had attempted to get ice for the landlord, when it was ordered for him in a serious illness the winter before, they had found the pit filled to the top with snow.
[Illustration: VERTICAL SECTION OF THE GLACIERE OF MONTHEZY, IN THE VAL DE TRAVERS.] As we stood at the mouth of the low entrance, making final preparations for a plunge into the darkness, I perceived a strong cold current blowing out from the cave--sufficiently strong and cold to render knickerbocker stockings a very unavailing protection.