Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

Passing Lake Meril, with its miniature icebergs, they reached the glacier of the Aletsch and its snow-fields, where the real difficulties and dangers of the ascent were to begin. In this great semicircular space, inclosed by the Jungfrau, the Monch, and the lesser peaks of this mountain group, lies the Aletsch reservoir of snow or neve. As this spot presented a natural pause between the laborious ascent already accomplished and the immense declivities which lay before them yet to be climbed, they named it Le Repos, and halted there for a short rest. Here they left also every needless incumbrance, taking only a little bread and wine, in case of exhaustion, some meteorological instruments, and the inevitable ladder, axe, and ropes of the Alpine climber. On their left, to the west of the amphitheatre, a vast passage opened between the Jungfrau and the Kranzberg, and in this could be distinguished a series of terraces, one above the other. The story is the usual one, of more or less steep slopes, where they sank in the softer snow or cut their steps in the icy surfaces; of open crevasses, crossed by the ladder,