Chapter X: Part I: Chiefly Narrative (7)

Thursday, 26th August.--A wild stormy morning after a wild and rainy night: the Adler pass being impassable, the mountaineers returned, and Imseng informed me that the Dom must be abandoned. He gave me the statistics of an avalanche which had fallen in the valley some years before. Within the memory of man Saas had never been touched by an avalanche, but a tradition existed that such a catastrophe had once occurred. On the 14th of March, 1848, at eight o'clock in the morning, the Cure was in his room; when he heard the cracking of pine-branches, and inferred from the sound that an avalanche was descending upon the village. It dashed in the windows of his house and filled his rooms with snow; the sound it produced being sufficient to mask the crashing of the timbers of an adjacent house. Three persons were killed. On the 3rd of April, 1849, heavy snow fell at Saas; the Cure waited until it had attained a depth of four feet, and then retreated to Fee. That night an avalanche descended, and in the line of its rush was a house in which five or six and twenty people had collected for safety: nineteen of them were killed. The Cure afterwards showed me the site of the house, and the direction of the avalanche. It passed through a pine wood; and on expressing my surprise that the trees did not arrest it, he replied that the snow was "quite like dust," and rushed among the trees like so much water. To return from Fee to Saas on the day following he found it necessary to carry two planks. Kneeling upon one of them, he pushed the other forward, and transferred his weight to it, drawing the other after him and repeating the same act. The snow was like flour, and would not otherwise bear his weight. Seeing no prospect of fine weather, I descended to Saas on the afternoon of the 26th. I was the only guest at the hotel; but during the evening I was gratified by the unexpected arrival of my friend Hirst, who was on his way over the Monte Moro to Italy.

[Sidenote: THE FEE GLACIER. 1858.]

[Sidenote: SNOW, VAPOUR AND CLOUD. 1858.]

For the last five days it had been a struggle between the north wind and the south, each edging the other by turns out of its atmospheric bed, and producing copious precipitation; but now the conflict was decided--the north had prevailed, and an almost unclouded heaven overspread the Alps. The few white fleecy masses that remained were good indications of the swift march of the wind in the upper air. My friend and I resolved to have at least one day's excursion together, and we chose for it the glacier of the Fee. Ascending the mountain by a well-beaten path, we passed a number of "Calvaries" filled with tattered saints and Virgins, and soon came upon the rim of a flattened bowl quite clasped by the mountains. In its centre was the little hamlet of Fee, round which were fresh green pastures, and beyond it the perpetual ice and snow. It was exceedingly picturesque--a scene of human beauty and industry where savagery alone was to be expected. The basin had been scooped by glaciers, and as we paused at its entrance the rounded and fluted rocks were beneath our feet. The Alphubel and the Mischabel raised their crowns to heaven in front of us; the newly fallen snow clung where it could to the precipitous crags of the Mischabel, but on the summits it was the sport of the wind. Sometimes it was borne straight upwards in long vertical striae; sometimes the fibrous columns swayed to the right, sometimes to the left; sometimes the motion on one of the summits would quite subside; anon the white peak would appear suddenly to shake itself to dust, which it yielded freely to the wind. I could see the wafted snow gradually melt away, and again curdle up into true white cloud by precipitation; this in its turn would be pulled asunder like carded wool, and reduced a second time to transparent vapour.

In the middle of the ice of the Fee stands a green alp, not unlike the Jardin; up this we climbed, halting at intervals upon its grassy knolls to inspect the glacier. I aimed at those places where on a priori grounds I should have thought the production of the veined structure most likely, and reached at length the base of a wall of rock from the edge of which long spears of ice depended. Here my friend halted, while Lauener and myself climbed the precipice, and ascended to the summit of the alp. The snow was deep at many places, and our immersions in unseen holes very frequent. From the peak of the Fee Alp a most glorious view is obtained; in point of grandeur it will bear comparison with any in the Alps, and its seclusion gives it an inexpressible charm. We remained for half an hour upon the warm rock, and then descended. It was our habit to jump from the higher ledges into the deep snow below them, in which we wallowed as if it were flour; but on one of these occasions I lighted on a stone, and the shock produced a curious effect upon my hearing. I appeared suddenly to lose the power of appreciating deep sounds, while the shriller ones were comparatively unimpaired. After I rejoined my friend it required attention on my part to hear him when he spoke to me. This continued until I approached the end of the glacier, when suddenly the babblement of streams, and a world of sounds to which I had been before quite deaf burst in upon me. The deafness was probably due to a strain of the tympanum, such as we can produce artificially, and thus quench low sounds, while shrill ones are scarcely affected.

[Sidenote: "A TERRIBLE HOLE." 1858.]

I was anxious to quit Saas early next morning, but the Cure expressed so strong a wish to show us what he called a _schauderhaftes Loch_--a terrible hole--which he had himself discovered, that I consented to accompany him. We were joined by his assistant and the priest of Fee. The stream from the Fee glacier has cut a deep channel through the rocks, and along the right-hand bank of the stream we ascended. It was very rough with fallen crags and fallen pines amid which we once or twice lost our way. At length we came to an aperture just sufficient to let a man's body through, and were informed by our conductor that our route lay along the little tunnel: he lay down upon his stomach and squeezed himself through it like a marmot. I followed him; a second tunnel, in which, however, we could stand upright, led into a spacious cavern, formed by the falling together of immense slabs of rock which abutted against each other so as to form a roof. It was the very type of a robber den; and when I remarked this, it was at once proposed to sing a verse from Schiller's play. The young priest had a powerful voice--he led and we all chimed in.

[Sidenote: SONG OF THE ROBBERS. 1858.]

"Ein frohes Leben fuehren wir,
Ein Leben voller Wonne.
Der Wald ist unser Nachtquartier,
Bei Sturm und Wind hanthieren wir,
Der Mond ist unsre Sonne."

Herr Imseng wore his black coat; the others had taken theirs off, but they wore their clerical hats, black breeches and stockings. We formed a singular group in a singular place, and the echoed voices mingled strangely with the gusts of the wind and the rush of the river.

Soon afterwards I parted from my friend, and descended the valley to Visp, where I also parted with my guide. He had been with me from the 22nd of July to the 29th of August, and did his duty entirely to my satisfaction. He is an excellent iceman, and is well acquainted both with the glaciers of the Oberland and of the Valais. He is strong and good-humoured, and were I to make another expedition of the kind I don't think that I should take any guide in the Oberland in preference to Christian Lauener.

(24.)

[Sidenote: CLIMBERS AND SCIENCE. 1858.]

It is a singular fact that as yet we know absolutely nothing of the winter temperature of any one of the high Alpine summits. No doubt it is a sufficient justification of our Alpine men, as regards their climbing, _that they like it_. This plain reason is enough; and no man who ever ascended that "bad eminence" Primrose Hill, or climbed to Hampstead Heath for the sake of a freer horizon, can consistently ask a better. As regards physical science, however, the contributions of our mountaineers have as yet been _nil_, and hence, when we hear of the scientific value of their doings, it is simply amusing to the climbers themselves. I do not fear that I shall offend them in the least by my frankness in stating this. Their pleasure is that of overcoming acknowledged difficulties, and of witnessing natural grandeur. But I would venture to urge that our Alpine men will not find their pleasure lessened by embracing a scientific object in their doings. They have the strength, the intelligence, and let them add to these the accuracy which physical science now demands, and they may contribute work of enduring value. Mr. Casella will gladly teach them the use of his minimum-thermometers; and I trust that the next seven years will not pass without making us acquainted with the winter temperature of every mountain of note in Switzerland.[A]

I had thought of this subject since I first read the conjectures of De Saussure on the temperature of Mont Blanc; but in 1857 I met Auguste Balmat at the Jardin, and there learned from him that he entertained the idea of placing a self-registering thermometer at the summit of the mountain. Balmat was personally a stranger to me at the time, but Professor Forbes's writings had inspired me with a respect for him, which this unprompted idea of his augmented. He had procured a thermometer, the graduation of which, however, he feared was not low enough. As an encouragement to Balmat, and with the view of making his laudable intentions known, I communicated them to the Royal Society, and obtained from the Council a small grant of money to purchase thermometers and to assist in the expenses of an ascent. I had now the thermometers in my possession; and having completed my work at Zermatt and Saas, my next desire was to reach Chamouni and place the instruments on the top of Mont Blanc. I accordingly descended the valley of the Rhone to Martigny, crossed the Tete Noire, and arrived at Chamouni on the 29th of August, 1858.

[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES AT CHAMOUNI. 1858.]

Balmat was engaged at this time as the guide of Mr. Alfred Wills, who, however, kindly offered to place him at my disposal; and also expressed a desire to accompany me himself and assist me in my observations. I gladly accepted a proposal which gave me for companion so determined a climber and so estimable a man. But Chamouni was rife with difficulties. In 1857 the Guide Chef had the good sense to give me considerable liberty of action. Now his mood was entirely changed: he had been "molested" for giving me so much freedom. I wished to have a boy to carry a small instrument for me up the Mer de Glace--he would not allow it; I must take a guide. If I ascended Mont Blanc he declared that I must take four guides; that, in short, I must in all respects conform to the rules made for ordinary tourists. I endeavoured to explain to him the advantages which Chamouni had derived from the labours of men of science; it was such men who had discovered it when it was unknown, and it was by their writings that the attention of the general public had been called towards it. It was a bad recompense, I urged, to treat a man of science as he was treating me. This was urged in vain; he shrugged his shoulders, was very sorry, but the thing could not be changed. I then requested to know his superior, that I might apply to him; he informed me that there were a President and Commission of guides at Chamouni, who were the proper persons to decide the question, and he proposed to call them together on the 31st of August, at seven P.M., on condition that I was to be present to state my own case. To this I agreed.

I spent that day quite alone upon the Mer de Glace, and climbed amid a heavy snow-storm to the Cleft station over Trelaporte. When I reached the Montanvert I was wet and weary, and would have spent the night there were it not for my engagement with the Guide Chef. I descended amid the rain, and at the appointed hour went to his bureau. He met me with a polite sympathetic shrug; explained to me that he had spoken to the Commission, but that it could not assemble _pour une chose comma ca_; that the rules were fixed, and I must abide by them. "Well," I responded, "you think you have done your duty; it is now my turn to perform mine. If no other means are available I will have this transaction communicated to the Sardinian Government, and I don't think that it will ratify what you have done." The Guide Chef evidently did not believe a word of it.

Previous to taking any further step I thought it right to see the President of the Commission of Guides, who was also Syndic of the commune. I called upon him on the morning of the 1st of September, and, assuming that he knew all about the transaction, spoke to him accordingly. He listened to me for a time, but did not seem to understand me, which I ascribed partly to my defective French pronunciation. I expressed a hope that he did comprehend me; he said he understood my words very well, but did not know their purport. In fact he had not heard a single word about me or my request. He stated with some indignation that, so far from its being a subject on which the Commission could not assemble, it was one which it was their especial duty to take into consideration. Our conference ended with the arrangement that I was to write him an official letter stating the case, which he was to forward to the Intendant of the province of Faucigny resident at Bonneville. All this was done.

[Sidenote: THE INTENDANT MEMORIALISED. 1858.]

I subsequently memorialised the Intendant himself; and Balmat visited him to secure his permission to accompany me. I have to record, that from first to last the Intendant gave me his sympathy and support. He could not alter laws, but he deprecated a "judaical" interpretation of them. His final letter to myself was as follows:--

[Sidenote: THE INTENDANT'S RESPONSE. 1858.]

"Intendance Royale de la Province de Faucigny,
"Bonneville, 11 Septembre, 1858.

"Monsieur,--

"J'apprends avec une veritable peine les difficultes que vous
rencontrez de la part de M. le Guide Chef pour l'effectuation
de votre perilleuse entreprise scientifique, mais je dois vous
dire aussi avec regret que ces difficultes resident dans un
reglement fait en vue de la securite des voyageurs, quel que
puisse etre le but de leurs excursions.

"Desireux neanmoins de vous etre utile, notamment en la
circonstance, j'invite aujourd'hui meme M. le Guide Chef a
avoir egard a votre projet, a faire en sa faveur une exception
au reglement ci-devant eu, tant qu'il n'y aura aucun danger
pour votre surete et celle des personnes qui vous
accompagneront, et enfin de se preter dans les limites de ses
moyens et attributions pour l'heureux succes de l'expedition,
dont les consequences et resultats n'interessent pas seulement
la science, mais encore la vallee de Chamounix en particulier.

"Agreez, Monsieur,
"l'assurance de ma consideration tres-distinguee.
"Pour l'Intendant en conge,
"Le Secretaire,
"DELEGLISE."

While waiting for this permission I employed myself in various ways. On the 2nd of September I ascended the Brevent, from which Mont Blanc is seen to great advantage. From Chamouni its vast slopes are so foreshortened that one gets a very imperfect idea of the extent to be traversed to reach the summit. What, however, struck me most on the Brevent was the changed relation of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte. From Montanvert the former appears a most imposing mass, while the peak of the latter appears rather dwarfed behind it; but from the Brevent the Aiguille du Dru is a mere pinnacle stuck in the breast of the grander pyramid of the Aiguille Verte.

[Sidenote: THE "SERACS" REVISITED. 1858.]

On the 4th I rose early, and, strapping on my telescope, ascended to the Montanvert, where I engaged a youth to accompany me up the glacier. The heavens were clear and beautiful:--blue over the Aiguille du Dru, blue over the Jorasse and Mont Mallet, deep blue over the pinnacles of Charmoz, and the same splendid tint stretched grandly over the Col du Geant and its Aiguille. No trace of condensation appeared till towards eleven o'clock, when a little black balloon of cloud swung itself over the Aiguilles Rouges. At one o'clock there were two large masses and a little one between them; while higher up a white veil, almost too thin to be visible, spread over a part of the heavens. At the zenith, however, and south, north, and west, the blue seemed to deepen as the day advanced. I visited the ice-wall at the Tacul, which seemed lower than it was last year; the cascade of le Geant appeared also far less imposing. Only in the early part of summer do we see the ice in its true grandeur: its edges and surfaces are then sharp and clear, but afterwards its nobler masses shrink under the influence of sun and air. The _seracs_ now appeared wasted and dirty, and not the sharp angular ice-castles which rose so grandly when I first saw them. Thirteen men had crossed the Col du Geant on the day previous, and left an ample trace behind them. This I followed nearly to the summit of the fall. The condition of the glacier was totally different from that of the opposite side on the previous year. The ice was riven, burrowed, and honeycombed, but the track amid all was easy: a vigorous English maiden might have ascended the fall without much difficulty. My object now was to examine the structure of the fall; but the ice was not in a good condition for such an examination: it was too much broken. Still a definite structure was in many places to be traced, and some of them apparently showed structure and bedding at a high angle to each other, but I could not be certain of it. I paused at every commanding point of view and examined the ice through my opera-glass; but the result was inconclusive. I observed that the terraces which compose the fall do not front the middle of the glacier, but turn their foreheads rather towards its eastern side, and the consequence is that the protuberances lower down, which are the remains of these terraces, are highest at the same side. Standing at the base of the Aiguille Noire, and looking downwards where the Glacier des Periades pushes itself against the Geant, a series of fine crumples is formed on the former, cut across by crevasses, on the walls of which a forward and backward dipping of the blue veins is exhibited. Huge crumples are also formed by the Glacier du Geant, which are well seen from a point nearly opposite the lowest lateral moraine of the Glacier des Periades. In some cases the upper portions of the crumples had scaled off so as to form arches of ice--a consequence doubtless of the pressure.

[Sidenote: THERMOMETER AT THE JARDIN. 1858.]

The beauty of some Alpine skies is treacherous; in fact the deepest blue often indicates an atmosphere charged almost to saturation with aqueous vapour. This was the case on the present occasion. Soon after reaching Chamouni in the evening, rain commenced and continued with scarcely any intermission until the afternoon of the 8th. I had given up all hopes of being able to ascend Mont Blanc; and hence resolved to place the thermometers in some more accessible position. On the 9th accordingly, accompanied by Mr. Wills, Balmat, and some other friends, I ascended to the summit of the Jardin, where we placed two thermometers: one in the ice, at a depth of three feet below the surface; another on a ledge of the highest rock.[B] The boiling point of water at this place was 194.6 deg. Fahr.

Deep snow was upon the Talefre, and the surrounding precipices were also heavily laden. Avalanches thundered incessantly from the Aiguille Verte and the other mountains. Scarcely five minutes on an average intervened between every two successive peals; and after the direct shock of each avalanche had died away the air of the basin continued to be shaken by the echoes reflected from its bounding walls.

[Sidenote: EVENING RED. 1858.]

The day was far spent before we had completed our work. All through the weather had been fine, and towards evening augmented to magnificence. As we descended the glacier from the Couvercle the sun was just disappearing, and the western heaven glowed with crimson, which crept gradually up the sky until finally it reached the zenith itself. Such intensity of colouring is exceedingly rare in the Alps; and this fact, together with the known variations in the intensity of the firmamental blue, justify the conclusion that the colouring must, in a great measure, be due to some _variable constituent_ of the atmosphere. If _the air_ were competent to produce these magnificent effects they would be the rule instead of the exception.

[Sidenote: FINISHED WORK. 1858.]

No sooner had the thermometers been thus disposed of than the weather appeared to undergo a permanent change. On the 10th it was perfectly fine--not the slightest mist upon Mont Blanc; on the 11th this was also the case. Balmat still had the old thermometer to which I have already referred; it might not do to show the minimum temperature of the air, but it might show the temperature at a certain depth below the surface. I find in my own case that the finishing of work has a great moral value: work completed is a safe fulcrum for the performance of other work; and even though in the course of our labours experience should show us a better means of accomplishing a given end, it is often far preferable to reach the end, even by defective means, than to swerve from our course. The habits which this conviction had superinduced no doubt influenced me when I decided on placing Balmat's thermometer on the summit of Mont Blanc.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] I find with pleasure that my friend Mr. John Ball is now exerting himself in this direction.

[B] The minimum temperature of the subsequent winter, as shown by this thermometer, was -6 deg. Fahr., or 38 deg. below the freezing point. The instrument placed in the ice was broken.

SECOND ASCENT OF MONT BLANC, 1858.

(25.)

[Sidenote: SHADOWS OF THE AIGUILLES. 1858.]

On the 12th of September, at 5-1/2 A.M. the sunbeams had already fallen upon the mountain; but though the sky above him, and over the entire range of the Aiguilles, was without a cloud, the atmosphere presented an appearance of turbidity resembling that produced by the dust and thin smoke mechanically suspended in a London atmosphere on a dry summer's day. At 20 minutes past 7 we quitted Chamouni, bearing with us the good wishes of a portion of its inhabitants.

[Sidenote: INTERFERENCE-SPECTRA. 1858.]

A lady accompanied us on horseback to the point where the path to the Grands Mulets deviates from that to the Plan des Aiguilles; here she turned to the left, and we proceeded slowly upwards, through woods of pine, hung with fantastic lichens: escaping from the gloom of these, we emerged upon slopes of bosky underwood, green hazel, and green larch, with the red berries of the mountain-ash shining brightly between them. Through the air above us, like gnomons of a vast sundial, the Aiguilles cast their fanlike shadows, which moved round as the day advanced. Slopes of rhododendrons with withered flowers next succeeded, but the colouring of the bilberry-leaves was scarcely less exquisite than the freshest bloom of the Alpine rose. For a long time we were in the cool shadow of the mountain, catching, at intervals, through the twigs in front of us, glimpses of the sun surrounded by coloured spectra. On one occasion a brow rose in front of me; behind it was a lustrous space of heaven, adjacent to the sun, which, however, was hidden behind the brow; against this space the twigs and weeds upon the summit of the brow shone as if they were self-luminous, while some bits of thistle-down floating in the air appeared, where they crossed this portion of the heavens, like fragments of the sun himself. Once the orb appeared behind a rounded mass of snow which lay near the summit of the Aiguille du Midi. Looked at with the naked eyes, it seemed to possess a billowy motion, the light darting from it in dazzling curves,--a subjective effect produced by the abnormal action of the intense light upon the eye. As the sun's disk came more into view, its rays however still grazing the summit of the mountain, interference-spectra darted from it on all sides, and surrounded it with a glory of richly-coloured bars. Mingling however with the grandeur of nature, we had the anger and obstinacy of man. With a view to subsequent legal proceedings, the Guide Chef sent a spy after us, who, having satisfied himself of our delinquency, took his unpleasant presence from the splendid scene.

Strange to say, though the luminous appearance of bodies projected against the sky adjacent to the rising sun is a most striking and beautiful phenomenon, it is hardly ever seen by either guides or travellers; probably because they avoid looking towards a sky the brightness of which is painful to the eyes. In 1859 Auguste Balmat had never seen the effect; and the only written description of it which we possess is one furnished by Professor Necker, in a letter to Sir David Brewster, which is so interesting that I do not hesitate to reproduce it here:--

[Sidenote: PROFESSOR NECKER'S LETTER. 1858.]

"I now come to the point," writes M. Necker, "which you particularly wished me to describe to you; I mean the luminous appearance of trees, shrubs, and birds, when seen from the foot of a mountain a little before sunrise. The wish I had to see again the phenomenon before attempting to describe it made me detain this letter a few days, till I had a fine day to go to see it at the Mont Saleve; so yesterday I went there, and studied the fact, and in elucidation of it I made a little drawing, of which I give you here a copy: it will, with the explanation and the annexed diagram (Fig. 9), impart to you, I hope, a correct idea of the phenomenon. You must conceive the observer placed at the foot of a hill interposed between him and the place where the sun is rising, and thus entirely in the shade; the upper margin of the mountain is covered with woods or detached trees and shrubs, which are projected as dark objects on a very bright and clear sky, except at the very place where the sun is just going to rise, for there all the trees and shrubs bordering the margin are entirely,--branches, leaves, stem and all,--of a pure and brilliant white, appearing extremely bright and luminous, although projected on a most brilliant and luminous sky, as that part of it which surrounds the sun always is. All the minutest details, leaves, twigs, &c., are most delicately preserved, and you would fancy you saw these trees and forests made of the purest silver, with all the skill of the most expert workman. The swallows and other birds flying in those particular spots appear like sparks of the most brilliant white. Unfortunately, all these details, which add so much to the beauty of this splendid phenomenon, cannot be represented in such small sketches.

"Neither the hour of the day nor the angle which the object makes with the observer appears to have any effect; for on some occasions I have seen the phenomenon take place at a very early hour in the morning. Yesterday it was 10 A.M., when I saw it as represented in Fig. 10. I saw it again on the same day at 5 P.M., at a different place of the same mountain, for which the sun was just setting. At one time the angle of elevation of the lighted white shrubs above the horizon of the spectator was about 20 deg., while at another place it was only 15 deg. But the extent of the field of illumination is variable, according to the distance at which the spectator is placed from it. When the object behind which the sun is just going to rise, or has just been setting, is very near, no such effect takes place. In the case represented in Fig. 9 the distance was about 194 metres, or 636 English feet, from the spectator in a direct line, the height above his level being 60 metres, or 197 English feet, and the horizontal line drawn from him to the horizontal projection of these points on the plane of his horizon being 160 metres, or 525 English feet, as will be seen in the following diagram, Fig. 10.

[Sidenote: SILVER TREES AT SUNRISE. 1858.]

[Sidenote: BIRDS AS SPARKS OR STARS. 1858.]

"In this case only small shrubs and the lower half of the stem of a tree are illuminated white, and the horizontal extent of this effect is also comparatively small; while at other places when I was near the edge behind which the sun was going to rise no such effect took place. But on the contrary, when I have witnessed the phenomenon at a greater distance and at a greater height, as I have seen it other times on the same and on other mountains of the Alps, large tracts of forests and immense spruce-firs were illuminated white throughout their whole length, as I have attempted to represent in Fig. 11, and the corresponding diagram, Fig. 12. Nothing can be finer than these silver-looking spruce-forests. At the same time, though at a distance of more than a thousand metres, a vast number of large swallows or swifts (_Cypselus alpinus_), which inhabit these high rocks, were seen as small brilliant stars or sparks moving rapidly in the air. From these facts it appears to me obvious that the extent of the illuminated spots varies in a direct ratio of their distance; but at the same time that there must be a constant angular space, corresponding probably to the zone, a few minutes of a degree wide, around the sun's disk, which is a limit to the occurrence of the appearance. This would explain how the real extent which it occupies on the earth's surface varies with the relative distance of the spot from the eye of the observer, and accounts also for the phenomenon being never seen in the low country, where I have often looked for it in vain. Now that you are acquainted with the circumstances of the fact, I have no doubt you will easily observe it in some part or other of your Scotch hills; it may be some long heather or furze will play the part of our Alpine forests, and I would advise you to try and place a bee-hive in the required position, and it would perfectly represent our swallows, sparks, and stars."

[Sidenote: THE LADDER CONDEMNED. 1858.]

Our porters, with one exception, reached the Pierre a l'Echelle as soon as ourselves; and here having refreshed themselves, and the due exchange of loads having been made, we advanced upon the glacier, which we crossed, until we came nearly opposite to the base of the Grands Mulets. The existence of one wide crevasse, which was deemed impassable, had this year introduced the practice of assailing the rocks at their base, and climbing them to the cabin, an operation which Balmat wished to avoid. At Chamouni, therefore, he had made inquiries regarding the width of the chasm, and acting on his advice I had had a ladder constructed in two pieces, which, united together by iron attachments, was supposed to be of sufficient length to span the fissure. On reaching the latter, the pieces were united, and the ladder thrown across, but the bridge was so frail and shaky at the place of junction, and the chasm so deep, that Balmat pronounced the passage impracticable.

[Sidenote: CROSSING CREVASSES. 1858.]

The porters were all grouped beside the crevasse when this announcement was made, and, like hounds in search of the scent, the group instantly broke up, seeking in all directions for a means of passage. The talk was incessant and animating; attention was now called in one direction, anon in another, the men meanwhile throwing themselves into the most picturesque groups and attitudes. All eyes at length were directed upon a fissure which was spanned at one point by an arch of snow, certainly under two feet deep at the crown. A stout rope was tied round the waist of one of our porters, and he was sent forward to test the bridge. He approached it cautiously, treading down the snow to give it compactness, and thus make his footing sure as he advanced; bringing regelation into play, he gave the mass the necessary continuity, and crossed in safety. The rope was subsequently stretched over the _pont_, and each of us causing his right hand to slide along it, followed without accident. Soon afterwards, however, we met with a second and very formidable crevasse, to cross which we had but half of our ladder, which was applied as follows:--The side of the fissure on which we stood was lower than the opposite one; over the edge of the latter projected a cornice of snow, and a ledge of the same material jutted from the wall of the crevasse, a little below us. The ladder was placed from ledge to cornice, both of its ends being supported by snow. I could hardly believe that so frail a bearing could possibly support a man's weight; but a porter was tied as before, and sent up the ladder, while we followed protected by the rope. We were afterwards tied together, and thus advanced in an orderly line to the Grands Mulets.

[Sidenote: GORGEOUS SUNSET. 1858.]

The cabin was wet and disagreeable, but the sunbeams fell upon the brown rocks outside, and thither Mr. Wills and myself repaired to watch the changes of the atmosphere. I took possession of the flat summit of a prism of rock, where, lying upon my back, I watched the clouds forming, and melting, and massing themselves together, and tearing themselves like wool asunder in the air above. It was nature's language addressed to the intellect; these clouds were visible symbols which enabled us to understand what was going on in the invisible air. Here unseen currents met, possessing different temperatures, mixing their contents both of humidity and motion, producing a mean temperature unable to hold their moisture in a state of vapour. The water-particles, obeying their mutual attractions, closed up, and a visible cloud suddenly shook itself out, where a moment before we had the pure blue of heaven. Some of the clouds were wafted by the air towards atmospheric regions already saturated with moisture, and along their frontal borders new cloudlets ever piled themselves, while the hinder portions, invaded by a drier or a warmer air, were dissipated; thus the cloud advanced, with gain in front and loss behind, its permanence depending on the balance between them. The day waned, and the sunbeams began to assume the colouring due to their passage through the horizontal air. The glorious light, ever deepening in colour, was poured bounteously over crags, and snows, and clouds, and suffused with gold and crimson the atmosphere itself. I had never seen anything grander than the sunset on that day. Clouds with their central portions densely black, denying all passage to the beams which smote them, floated westward, while the fiery fringes which bordered them were rendered doubly vivid by contrast with the adjacent gloom. The smaller and more attenuated clouds were intensely illuminated throughout. Across other inky masses were drawn zigzag bars of radiance which resembled streaks of lightning. The firmament between the clouds faded from a blood-red through orange and daffodil into an exquisite green, which spread like a sea of glory through which those magnificent argosies slowly sailed. Some of the clouds were drawn in straight chords across the arch of heaven, these being doubtless the sections of layers of cloud whose horizontal dimensions were hidden from us. The cumuli around and near the sun himself could not be gazed upon, until, as the day declined, they gradually lost their effulgence and became tolerable to the eyes. All was calm--but there was a wildness in the sky like that of anger, which boded evil passions on the part of the atmosphere. The sun at length sank behind the hills, but for some time afterwards carmine clouds swung themselves on high, and cast their ruddy hues upon the mountain snows. Duskier and colder waxed the west, colder and sharper the breeze of evening upon the Grands Mulets, and as twilight deepened towards night, and the stars commenced to twinkle through the chilled air, we retired from the scene.

[Sidenote: STORM ON THE GRANDS MULETS. 1858.]

The anticipated storm at length gave notice of its coming. The sea-waves, as observed by Aristotle, sometimes reach the shore before the wind which produces them is felt; and here the tempest sent out its precursors, which broke in detached shocks upon the cabin before the real storm arrived. Billows of air, in ever quicker succession, rolled over us with a long surging sound, rising and falling as crest succeeded trough and trough succeeded crest. And as the pulses of a vibrating body, when their succession is quick enough, blend to a continuous note, so these fitful gusts linked themselves finally to a storm which made its own wild music among the crags. Grandly it swelled, carrying the imagination out of doors, to the clouds and darkness, to the loosened avalanches and whirling snow upon the mountain heads. Moored to the rock on two sides, the cabin stood firm, and its manifest security allowed the mind the undisturbed enjoyment of the atmospheric war. We were powerfully shaken, but had no fear of being uprooted; and a certain grandeur of the heart rose responsive to the grandeur of the storm. Mounting higher and higher, it at length reached its maximum strength, from which it lowered fitfully, until at length, with a melancholy wail, it bade our rock farewell.

A little before half-past one we issued from the cabin. The night being without a moon, we carried three lanterns. The heavens were crowded with stars, among which, however, angry masses of cloud here and there still wandered. The storm, too, had left a rear-guard behind it; and strong gusts rolled down upon us at intervals, at one time, indeed, so violent as to cause Balmat to express doubts of our being able to reach the summit. With a thick handkerchief bound around my hat and ears I enjoyed the onset of the wind. Once, turning my head to the left, I saw what appeared to me to be a huge mass of stratus cloud, at a great distance, with the stars shining over it. In another instant a precipice of _neve_ loomed upon us; we were close to its base, and along its front the annual layers were separated from each other by broad dark bands. Through the gloom it appeared like a cloud, the lines of bedding giving to it the stratus character.

[Sidenote: A COMET DISCOVERED. 1858.]

Immediately before lying down on the previous evening I had opened the little window of the cabin to admit some air. In the sky in front of me shone a curious nodule of misty light with a pale train attached to it. In 1853, on the side of the Brocken, I had observed, without previous notice, a comet discovered a few days previously by a former fellow student, and here was another "discovery" of the same kind. I inspected the stranger with my telescope, and assured myself that it was a comet. Mr. Wills chanced to be outside at the time, and made the same observation independently. As we now advanced up the mountain its ominous light gleamed behind us, while high up in heaven to our left the planet Jupiter burned like a lamp of intense brightness. The Petit Plateau forms a kind of reservoir for the avalanches of the Dome du Gouter, and this year the accumulation of frozen debris upon it was enormous. We could see nothing but the ice-blocks on which the light of the lanterns immediately fell; we only knew that they had been discharged from the _seracs_, and that similar masses now rose threatening to our right, and might at any moment leap down upon us. Balmat commanded silence, and urged us to move across the plateau with all possible celerity. The warning of our guide, the wild and rakish appearance of the sky, the spent projectiles at our feet, and the comet with its "horrid hair" behind, formed a combination eminently calculated to excite the imagination.

[Sidenote: DAWN ON THE GRAND PLATEAU. 1858.]

And now the sky began to brighten towards dawn, with that deep and calm beauty which suggests the thought of adoration to the human mind. Helped by the contemplation of the brightening east, which seemed to lend lightness to our muscles, we cheerily breasted the steep slope up to the Grand Plateau. The snow here was deep, and each of our porters took the lead in turn. We paused upon the Grand Plateau and had breakfast; digging, while we halted, our feet deeply into the snow. Thence up to the corridor, by a totally different route from that pursued by Mr. Hirst and myself the year previously; the slope was steep, but it had not a precipice for its boundary. Deep steps were necessary for a time, but when we reached the summit our ascent became more gentle. The eastern sky continued to brighten, and by its illumination the Grand Plateau and its bounding heights were lovely beyond conception. The snow was of the purest white, and the glacier, as it pushed itself on all sides into the basin, was riven by fissures filled with a coerulean light, which deepened to inky gloom as the vision descended into them. The edges were overhung with fretted cornices, from which depended long clear icicles, tapering from their abutments like spears of crystal. The distant fissures, across which the vision ranged obliquely without descending into them, emitted that magical firmamental shimmer which, contrasted with the pure white of the snow, was inexpressibly lovely. Near to us also grand castles of ice reared themselves, some erect, some overturned, with clear cut sides, striped by the courses of the annual snows, while high above the _seracs_ of the plateau rose their still grander brothers of the Dome du Gouter. There was a nobility in this glacier scene which I think I have never seen surpassed;--a strength of nature, and yet a tenderness, which at once raised and purified the soul. The gush of the direct sunlight could add nothing to this heavenly beauty; indeed I thought its yellow beams a profanation as they crept down from the humps of the Dromedary, and invaded more and more the solemn purity of the realm below.

[Sidenote: BALMAT IN DANGER. 1858.]

Our way lay for a time amid fine fissures with blue walls, until at length we reached the edge of one which elicited other sentiments than those of admiration. It must be crossed. At the opposite side was a high and steep bank of ice which prolonged itself downwards, and ended in a dependent eave of snow which quite overhung the chasm, and reached to within about a yard of our edge of the crevasse. Balmat came forward with his axe, and tried to get a footing on the eave: he beat it gently, but the axe went through the snow, forming an aperture through which the darkness of the chasm was rendered visible. Our guide was quite free, without rope or any other means of security; he beat down the snow so as to form a kind of stirrup, and upon this he stepped. The stirrup gave way, it was right over the centre of the chasm, but with wonderful tact and coolness he contrived to get sufficient purchase from the yielding mass to toss himself back to the side of the chasm. The rope was now brought forward and tied round the waist of one of the porters; another step was cautiously made in the eave of snow, the man was helped across, and lessened his own weight by means of his hatchet. He gradually got footing on the face of the steep, which he mounted by escaliers; and on reaching a sufficient height he cut two large steps in which his feet might rest securely. Here he laid his breast against the sloping wall, and another person was sent forward, who drew himself up by the rope which was attached to the leader. Thus we all passed, each of us in turn bearing the strain of his successor upon the rope; it was our last difficulty, and we afterwards slowly plodded through the snow of the corridor towards the base of the Mur de la Cote.

[Sidenote: STORM ON MONT BLANC. 1858.]

[Sidenote: THERMOMETER BURIED. 1858.]

Climbing zigzag, we soon reached the summit of the Mur, and immediately afterwards found ourselves in the midst of cold drifting clouds, which obscured everything. They dissolved for a moment and revealed to us the sunny valley of Chamouni; but they soon swept down again and completely enveloped us. Upon the Calotte, or last slope, I felt no trace of the exhaustion which I had experienced last year, but enjoyed free lungs and a quiet heart. The clouds now whirled wildly round us, and the fine snow, which was caught by the wind and spit bitterly against us, cut off all visible communication between us and the lower world. As we approached the summit the air thickened more and more, and the cold, resulting from the withdrawal of the sunbeams, became intense. We reached the top, however, in good condition, and found the new snow piled up into a sharp _arete_, and the summit of a form quite different from that of the _Dos d'un Ane_, which it had presented the previous year. Leaving Balmat to make a hole for the thermometer, I collected a number of batons, drove them into the snow, and, drawing my plaid round them, formed a kind of extempore tent to shelter my boiling-water apparatus. The covering was tightly held, but the snow was as fine and dry as dust, and penetrated everywhere: my lamp could not be secured from it, and half a box of matches was consumed in the effort to ignite it. At length it did flame up, and carried on a sputtering combustion. The cold of the snow-filled boiler condensing the vapour from the lamp gradually produced a drop, which, when heavy enough to detach itself from the vessel, fell upon the flame and put it out. It required much patience and the expenditure of many matches to relight it. Meanwhile the absence of muscular action caused the cold to affect our men severely. My beard and whiskers were a mass of clotted ice. The batons were coated with ice, and even the stem of my thermometer, the bulb of which was in hot water, was covered by a frozen enamel. The clouds whirled, and the little snow granules hit spitefully against the skin wherever it was exposed. The temperature of the air was 20 deg. Fahr. below the freezing point. I was too intent upon my work to heed the cold much, but I was numbed; one of my fingers had lost sensation, and my right heel was in pain: still I had no thought of forsaking my observation until Mr. Wills came to me and said that we must return speedily, for Balmat's hands were _gelees_. I did not comprehend the full significance of the word; but, looking at the porters, they presented such an aspect of suffering that I feared to detain them longer. They looked like worn old men, their hair and clothing white with snow, and their faces blue, withered, and anxious-looking. The hole being ready, I asked Balmat for the magnet to arrange the index of the thermometer: his hands seemed powerless. I struck my tent, deposited the instrument, and, as I watched the covering of it up, some of the party, among whom were Mr. Wills and Balmat, commenced the descent.[A]

[Sidenote: BALMAT FROSTBITTEN. 1858.]

I followed them speedily. Midway down the Calotte I saw Balmat, who was about a hundred yards in advance of me, suddenly pause and thrust his hands into the snow, and commence rubbing them vigorously. The suddenness of the act surprised me, but I had no idea at the time of its real significance: I soon came up to him; he seemed frightened, and continued to beat and rub his hands, plunging them, at quick intervals, into the snow. Still I thought the thing would speedily pass away, for I had too much faith in the man's experience to suppose that he would permit himself to be seriously injured. But it did not pass as I hoped it would, and the terrible possibility of his losing his hands presented itself to me. He at length became exhausted by his own efforts, staggered like a drunken man, and fell upon the snow. Mr. Wills and myself took each a hand, and continued the process of beating and rubbing. I feared that we should injure him by our blows, but he continued to exclaim, "N'ayez pas peur, frappez toujours, frappez fortement!" We did so, until Mr. Wills became exhausted, and a porter had to take his place. Meanwhile Balmat pinched and bit his fingers at intervals, to test their condition; but there was no sensation. He was evidently hopeless himself; and, seeing him thus, produced an effect upon me that I had not experienced since my boyhood--my heart swelled, and I could have wept like a child. The idea that I should be in some measure the cause of his losing his hands was horrible to me; schemes for his support rushed through my mind with the usual swiftness of such speculations, but no scheme could restore to him his lost hands. At length returning sensation in one hand announced itself by excruciating pain. "Je souffre!" he exclaimed at intervals--words which, from a man of his iron endurance, had a more than ordinary significance. But pain was better than death, and, under the circumstances, a sign of improvement. We resumed our descent, while he continued to rub his hands with snow and brandy, thrusting them at every few paces into the mass through which we marched. At Chamouni he had skilful medical advice, by adhering to which he escaped with the loss of six of his nails--his hands were saved.

I cannot close this recital without expressing my admiration of the dauntless bearing of our porters, and of the cheerful and efficient manner in which they did their duty throughout the whole expedition. Their names are Edouard Bellin, Joseph Favret, Michel Payot, Joseph Folliguet, and Alexandre Balmat.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In August, 1859, I found the temperature of water, boiling in an open vessel at the summit of Mont Blanc, to be 184.95 deg. Fahr. On that occasion also, though a laborious search was made for the thermometer, it could not be found.

(26.)

[Sidenote: PROCES-VERBAL. 1858.]

The hostility of the chief guide to the expedition was not diminished by the letter of the Intendant; and he at once entered a _proces-verbal_ against Balmat and his companions on their return to Chamouni. I felt that the power thus vested in an unlettered man to arrest the progress of scientific observations was so anomalous, that the enlightened and liberal Government of Sardinia would never tolerate such a state of things if properly represented to it. The British Association met at Leeds that year, and to it, as a guardian of science, my thoughts turned. I accordingly laid the case before the Association, and obtained its support: a resolution was unanimously passed "that application be made to the Sardinian authorities for increased facilities for making scientific observations in the Alps."