40 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST S HAMMER. 



approachable altitude? Ab, tbe answer to our question is 

 recorded on your grey, pilastered sides. If we can- 

 not place foot upon your bead, we are near enougb 

 to read your record. We can see your vertical sbeets of 

 rock, witb tbeir projecting angles running up tbe giddy 

 spire like tbe lines of masonry on tbe bigb-towered catbe- 

 dral at Strasbourg. Old Cbarmoz, after all, is not erect, 

 but prostrate on bis side. Weatbered and battered and 

 wasted by tbe wear of centuries, tbese salient pinnacles 

 are but tbe protruding rib of a mountain skeleton. 



We bave discovered tbe way to Cbarmoz, but, like 

 Jacques Balmat, on tbe discovery of tbe patb to Mont 

 Blanc, we sball not travel over it tbe first day. Our 

 mountain crest wbicli leads to Cbarmoz bas tbinned to a 

 knife-edge. On eacb side we look down, almost vertically, 

 about two tbousand feet, upon some rocks wbicb would 

 bave a tendency to abate too suddenly our agreeable ex- 

 citement. We know tbat we could scale tbe pinnacle of 

 Cbarmoz, but we ougbt to go back and inform the ladies 

 wbere we mis^bt be found in case of anv inadvertence. 



But we sball not travel tbe same road twice. We de- 

 scend a declivity as steep as possible, directly to tbe Mer 

 de Glace. Getting in tbe track of an old avalancbe, we 

 go plunging, sliding, jumping, rolling, and so, literally, 

 " we go rolling bome." Reacbing tbe glacier, we mount 

 its tremendous lateral moraine rising one bundred feet 

 above tbe swelling ice-sea ; and over boulders, and along tbe 

 sbining faces of cliffs scoured b}^ tbe moving ice, we pick 

 our way down to tbe spot wbere we left tbe ladies pressing 

 flowers. 



We now feel competent to cross tbe Mer de Glace with- 

 out tbe intervention of a guide. Declining many proifers 



