My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

2i6MY LIFErocks, among which were two species of the exquisiteAndrosaces, the true gems of the primrose tribe. Ialso one day took a lonely walk up a wild valleywhich terminated in the glacier that descends fromMount Emilius ; and on another day we drove upthe main valley to Villeneuve, and then walked upa little way into the Val Savaranches. This is oneof those large open valleys which have been theoutlet of a great glacier, and in which the subglacialtorrent has cut a deep narrow chasm through hardrocks at its termination, through which the river nowempties itself into the main stream of the DoraBaltea, This was the first of the kind I had speciallynoticed, though I had seen the Gorge of the Trienton my first visit to Switzerland at a time when I hadbarely heard of the glacial epoch.Returning over the St. Bernard we went to Interlakenand Grindelwald, saw the glaciers there, andthen went over the Wengern Alp, staying two days atthe hotel to see the avalanches and botanize amongthe pastures and moraines. Then down to Lauterbrunnento see the Staubbach, and thence home.As I had found that amid the distractions andexcitement of London, its scientific meetings, dinnerparties and sight-seeing, I could not settle down towork at the more scientific chapters of my " MalayArchipelago," I let my house in London for a year,from Midsummer, 1867, and went to live with mywife's family at Hurstpierpoint. There, in perfectquiet, and with beautiful fields and downs aroundme, I was able to work steadily, having all mymaterials already prepared. Returning to Londonin the summer of 1868, I was fully occupied inarranging for the illustrations and correcting theproofs. The work appeared early in the n6w year,