He had now the candle in his own possession, and I was propped on a stone and an alpenstock in the lake, so he turned to go, vowing that he would leave me alone in the dark if I did not come out at once.

There was no help for it, as the thermometer would have been of no use without a candle, and a step in the dark is not pleasant when all around is water, so I slowly drew up the thermometer and read 33 deg.

F.In making final arrangements for departure, I let it lie in the water for a few seconds longer, and it fell to 321/2 deg.; but Rosset would not stay a moment longer, and I was obliged to be content with that result.

He made himself very easy about the matter, and said we must call it zero; and in the evening I heard him telling the maire that the greatest of the wonders he had missed, by his patriotic care for his neck, was a lake of water which did not freeze, though its temperature was zero (centigrade).
Among the stones at the bottom of this water, I saw here and there patches of a furry sort of ice.

I have often watched the freezing of a rapid Scotch stream, where, in the swifter parts, the ice forms first at the bottom and gradually creeps up the larger stones till it appears on the surface, and becomes a nucleus, round which pieces of floating ice collect; and the substance in the glaciere-lake had exactly the same appearance as the Scotch ground-ice.