to find out the fermier; but Renaud could tell nothing of him beyond the fact that he lived in Geneva, which some promiscuous person supplemented by the information that his name was Boucqueville, and that he had something to do with comestibles.  On entering upon a hunt for M. Boucqueville a fortnight later, it turned out that no one had heard of such a person, and the Directory professed equal ignorance; but, under the head of ‘Comestibles,’ there appeared a Gignoux-Bocquet, No. 34, Marche.  Thirty-four, Marche, said, yes—­M.  Bocquet—­it was quite true:  nevertheless, it was clear that monsieur meant Sebastian aine, on the Molard.  The Molard knew only a younger Sebastian, but suggested that the right man was probably M. Gignoux-Chavaz, over the way; and when it was objected that Gignoux-Bocquet, and not Gignoux-Chavaz, was the name, the Molard replied that it made no matter,—­Chavaz or Bocquet, it was all the same.  When M. Gignoux-Chavaz was found, he said that he certainly was a man who had something to do with a glaciere, but, instead of farming the Glaciere of S. Georges, he had only bought a considerable quantity of ice two years ago from the Glaciere of S. Livres, and he did not believe that the fermier of S. Georges lived in Geneva.  Part of the confusion was due to the custom of placing a wife’s maiden name after her husband’s name:  thus Gignoux-Chavaz implies that a male Gignoux has married a female Chavaz; and when a Swiss marries an English lady with a very English name, the result in the Continental mouth is sufficiently curious.

On arriving at the entrance to the glaciere, the end of a suggestive ladder is seen under the protecting trunks; and after one or two steps have been taken down the ladder, the effect of the cave below is extremely remarkable, the main features being a long wall covered thickly with white ice in sheets, a solid floor of darker-coloured ice, and a high pyramid of snow reaching up towards the uncovered hole already spoken of.  The atmosphere of the cave is damp, and this causes the ladders to fall speedily to decay, so that they are by no means to be trusted:  indeed, an early round gave way under one of my sisters, when they visited the cave with me in 1861, and suggested a clear fall of 60 feet on to a cascade of ice.[16] There are three ladders, one below the other, and a hasty measurement gave their lengths as 20, 16, and 28 feet.  The rock-roof is only a few feet thick in the neighbourhood of the hole of entrance.

[Illustration:  ENTRANCE TO THE GLACIERE OF S. GEORGES.]

The total length of the cave is 110 feet, lying NE. and SW., in the line of the main chain of the Jura.  The lowest part of the floor is a sea of ice of unknown depth, 45 feet long by 15 broad; and Renaud tried my powers of belief by asserting that in 1834 the level of this floor was higher by half the height of the cave than now; a statement, however, which is fully borne out by Professor Pictet’s measurements